ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance

by Knight, Kylie

  He nodded to the empty seat beside her and said, “Yes, Carly, I can see that.” He flagged down a bartender while she suffered a withering blush and ordered for her: a frozen margarita. Had he seen her after all? she wondered as they arrived – two at the same time, courtesy of El Tropicale’s generous Ladies Night promotion. Or was it just a lucky guess?

  She hated not being able to figure Rahm out at a glance, but wondered if that wasn’t half the fun. Would she have raced out on a work night on the chance of meeting someone dull and predictable? she wondered, stirring but not sipping her drink.

  “Don’t worry,” Rahm said, turning toward her on his stool as the throbbing nightclub seemed to fall away beyond them. “I’m a workaholic myself.”

  “I can see that,” she teased, eyeing the more than casual attire and his own fresh drink, held high in hand.

  “A reward,” he said, holding it aloft so they could toast. “For another long day in the technology trenches.”

  She raised her glass after all, clinking it with his. “Hear, hear,” she said, sipping the drink at her own risk and wondering what might happen if, as Avery suggested, she quit “playing games” and simply gave into her obvious and powerful desires.

  Well, she decided firmly, peering back into Rahm’s bottomless eyes with dubious intent. No time like the present to find out…

  Twelve

  Rahm breathed in the night air, as sleek and sultry as his companion as they emerged from the club to find the streets of South Beach deserted. Carly’s skin was flushed and her eyes smoky as they walked, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, her body language screaming for more.

  “Shall I walk you home?” he asked as they stood, restless and close on the empty sidewalk. Back inside the club the sounds of the live band throbbed and moaned beside the closed door, making him wistful for the intense flirtation that had followed her sudden and unexpected – but more than welcome – appearance.

  Carly paused, long hair framing her beautiful face, eyes full of promise as she shook her head. “I don’t quite feel like going home yet,” she murmured, subtly sliding her arm through his so that they linked at the elbows. Her skin was warm and inviting, making him lean closer as he replied, “Funny, me either?”

  “Can we walk?” she asked. “Just… walk?”

  He nodded and, without another word, began doing just that. Their pace was slow but purposeful, more like a dance set to the music of the street. Darkness pooled where streetlights were absent, but Carly’s eyes glowed bright enough for him to bask in them all night long. As he gently guided her toward his rented room on Mango Street, he intended to do just that.

  His body was alive with anticipation as they grew silent with each passing step. Despite the lack of words, Rahm could feel her body language loud and clear as her hip gently sashayed against his with every long, languid step. In her work heels, she was nearly his height and he enjoyed not just the swing of her hips but the scrape of her long hair against his shoulder as they approached Club 9, a small, cubist building tucked back a few blocks from Ocean Beach Boulevard.

  “A little presumptuous of you, don’t you think?” Carly asked as they approached the lobby of the exclusive hotel, where rooms often ran over $3,000 a night. With 24-hour concierge, room, spa and butler service, it was but a pittance and Rahm often took his nightly conquests there. It was a good escape from the penthouse apartment high atop the ocean which, while romantic, meant entanglements he often preferred not to deal with. He didn’t anticipate such with Carly, but then again… a man in his position could never be quite sure. Besides, he reasoned, nodding to the doorman as they were swept inside the inviting lobby, after bedding Carly that night, he could satisfy his duties in South Beach and move on to the next American city on his list.

  Maybe Vegas, he was already thinking as they stood, giddily awaiting the elevator. Or perhaps LA?

  The elevator door dinged, startling Rahm from his reverie. Drifting inside to hold the door for her, Carly held him back by his arm, eyes curious and almost… hurt… as they peered back at him.

  “Where did you go just now?” she asked, as perceptive as she was beautiful. And strong, apparently, as her arm prevented him from taking another step.

  “What?” he asked, surprised by this American woman’s ability to read his thoughts. “I’m right here.”

  She released him, but stood distinctly apart from him as he punched in his private code before drifting even further from him during the elevator ride up to the fourth floor of the small, exclusive hotel.

  “For a moment there,” she said with startling prescience, her sleek eyes turning observant and wicked, “I thought you might be imagining where you might go after these ‘negotiations’ are over.”

  He laughed aloud, sincerely concerned that she might actually have ESP! “Quite the contrary,” he lied, not sure she believed him as they stepped into his loft suite on the top floor. “I’m too busy enjoying these, ‘negotiations, as you put it, to think of anything else.”

  “You better be,” she purred, admiring the modern loft with all its sleek, luxurious lines and stark white furnishings. “Because I don’t ‘negotiate’ with just anyone, you know?”

  He chuckled, sliding a bottle of priceless champagne from the small stainless steel refrigerator beneath the wet bar. “I’m flattered,” he said, taking great care in opening the bottle so that the cork sailed through the spacious living room. Carly watched it sail in a swift arc until it landed just inside the sliding glass door leading to the balcony lap pool. It glittered with a soft internal light and looked radiant as she slid open the door and stepped onto the balcony.

  Rahm paused, breathless at the sight of Carly’s sleek, red hair under the pale moonlight, her even paler skin aglow as he approached, two crystal glasses fizzing with bubbly.

  “Here,” he said, just shy of a stammer as he handed her one.

  She turned, pinning him with radiant green eyes as she ignored the glass. “I think I’ve had enough to drink,” she purred, reaching for his T-shirt to drag him closer. He barely had enough time to set the glasses down on a nearby bistro table before they stood, face to face, her lips full and moist as she slid next to his ear. “But I suddenly find myself ravenous.”

  He chuckled, hands reaching out to draw her near. “Luckily Club 9 offers 24-hour room service,” he chuckled breezily as his heart pounded and blood filled his ears.

  She pressed her body against his, warm and soft and hard all at the same time. “Maybe for breakfast,” she breathed, lips tracing the line of his jaw as his own lips gently parted in anticipation. “Right now I’m hungry for a little more… negotiation.”

  He nodded, their lips finally meeting as a jolt of sudden electricity made him spasm with joy. He had never waited so long to kiss a woman, nor been rewarded so handsomely as passion filled his every cell. He felt, in a word, breathless as their bodies danced alongside each other as she opened her mouth hungrily to invite him deeper inside.

  He, too, was ravenous, suddenly hungry to devour this pale, redheaded goddess. Normally he enjoyed sex as he did a fine meal or glass of red wine, something to be quickly savored and then just as quickly forgotten. But his body responded anew to this rapturous woman’s invitation, hands quickly tugging at her jacket until it felt, with a whisper, to the marble pool deck.

  Her silken blouse beneath, sleeveless and inviting, begged to be unbuttoned even as she tugged at the hem of his expensively casual T-shirt. He paused in his own teenage fumblings to allow her to drag it off, drinking in the pools of her eyes as she savored his smooth, Persian skin and the torso he worked so hard to attain in his daily hours in the gym. Her pale hands dragged across his broad shoulders and powerful chest, gentle fingertips driving him mad with anticipation as he stiffened in his black boxer briefs. Hungrily she bent forward, following the trail of her fingertips with soft, feathery kisses that overwhelmed him with erotic longings. Suddenly, as he stood quivering beneath her attention,
trembling with the intensity of his own desire, he realized this was no casual encounter and that he might just have to stay in South Beach a tad longer to enjoy the power of his negotiation fully.

  Thirteen

  Carly savored the taste of Rahm’s bare skin, as excited by his glistening, sculpted torso as she was by her own inexplicable desire. After all, she’d merely gone out for a “nightcap” to reveal her restlessness (or so she told herself) and, suddenly, here she was ripping off a veritable stranger’s shirt in the middle of the night!

  And yet she found herself unable to control herself, her skin alive and electric, her breath hot and heavy, her very pulse pounding as she savored the salty, savory taste of a strange man’s flesh. He responded in kind, tenderly enduring her soft, peppering kisses until he, too, pawed at her blouse and tore it from above her head, wisps of red hair falling atop her bare shoulders as she stood, exposed, in her maroon work bra.

  Soft and sheer, it did little to mask the gentle fingertips that dragged across its silken material as Carly gave in to her sodden desires and moaned aloud, all thoughts of “negotiations” clearly off the table as she heeded her PA’s advice and gave in to her baser instincts.

  We both want this, she assured herself as Rahm’s hands drifted toward the waistband of her sensible work skirt, so what’s so wrong about having it? Or each other?

  His hands worked a certain kind of magic, deftly unhooking her skirt and unzipping it down the side so that it pooled around her ankles, her hands working feverishly at the belt that kept his jeans up – until it didn’t anymore and they, too, slid down his muscular thighs to drag across his calves. They stood, poolside, skirt and pants ridiculously around their ankles, like two love struck teens who didn’t know what came next.

  But Carly knew, all too well, the costs of a one-night stand and, despite the blood racing through her veins and the dampness between her thighs, she vowed not to let it go that far. At least, not this time.

  Tenderly, even gently, but firmly, Carly met Rahm’s hand as it slid toward the waistband of her panties. Their eyes met, his confused, hers certain, as she simply shook her head. Emotions flooded his magnificent face, so noble and regal and yet so confused, like a pampered child being denied what he felt was rightfully his.

  She batted her eyelashes, licked her lips and met him halfway, stepping from her skirt and sliding her throbbing mound against his own. “Don’t worry, Rahm,” she whispered, draping her hands around his neck as he pressed against her feverish flesh. “I won’t leave you hanging.”

  They stood like that, Rahm helplessly pinned in place by the constraints of the tight black jeans pooled around his ankles and Carly free to tease and tempt and caress him as she pleased. She felt powerful and turned on as she alternately ground herself against his swollen staff and caressed it, like courting teenagers, over the quickly dampening front panel of his expensive boxer briefs.

  He panted and moaned, powerless to do anything but gently cling to her waist as she danced and teased and purred and urged him to a quick and throttling conclusion. Before he could get there without her, Carly gently ground against his turgid staff, quickening her pace – and her pulse – until she squealed just as he grunted, until she gushed just as he surged, until he reached down to squeeze her trembling buttocks and drew her closer, ever closer, mouth clamped down upon hers as they climaxed together in the warm, tropical breezes.

  She slumped against his panting chest, spent and shamed, feeling far too exposed and vulnerable in her panties and bra. Pushing herself away from him, despite his eager clutches and murmured protests, she whirled in a semi-circle, quickly finding her skirt and blouse and sliding them on as she noted the half-dozen buildings towering above their very public meeting place.

  “Jesus!” she murmured, her voice breathless and husky from the unexpected orgasm. “I can’t… can’t believe that just happened.”

  “Where are you going?” Rahm blurted, bent over as he tried to pull up his pants. Struggling, he sank onto the nearest deck chair to drag them up his shapely calves. “I had… a whole night panned!”

  She blushed at the thought of more hidden pleasures, perhaps in the reclining position this time, and yet she saw her opportunity and took it. As he struggled to drag up his jeans she merely shook her head, blurted, “maybe some other time” and fled.

  Fled past his deck chair, fled past his waving arms, fled from his hurt, wounded eyes, fled through the sunken living room and into the foyer and into the elevator, gently awaiting her arrival as she pressed “L” for lobby and felt the doors close shut before he even had a chance to catch up.

  Carly’s heart raced as she fixed her hair on the way down, the elevator so sleek and smooth she was still fussing with it when the doors opened on a silent, spectacular lobby. She rushed past the desk clerk, a knowing look on her fresh young face, then past the doorman, holding the door open with a tip of his hat as she raced into the warm, sultry breeze, the sound of her sensible work heels scraping down the cobblestone path.

  She didn’t stop racing until she was nearly home, pausing to sag against the bank on the corner as she caught her breath. She listened, between ragged breaths, for footsteps. Soft ones, familiar ones, on leather soles as Rahm raced to catch up with her.

  He didn’t, not even when she stood and turned to find the streets behind her empty and glistening in the still moonlight. Part of her was relieved that he hadn’t followed, but mostly she was disappointed. She waited impossibly long until the silence became deafening, the empty streets depressing, before turning and following the familiar trail home.

  Fourteen

  “This… this is six times what the nearest competitor is offering.”

  Josh Siegel sat, slack jawed, eyes wide, at their private booth high atop the Chez Ritz restaurant in downtown South Beach. Rahm had rented out the restaurant for dinner and arrived with a cashier’s check to close the deal with the startlingly young CEO of SoundCloud, the tech company Carly had been poised to invest in later that week. So young that the waitress had literally asked for his ID when he ordered a pint of craft beer at the beginning of their business meeting.

  “Is it?” Rahm asked casually, toying absently with his linen napkin. The restaurant was sumptuous and quite empty, an entire staff at his beck and call as the two sat near a huge glass wall overlooking the ocean. “I can always reconsider my offer if it’s too much?”

  Josh laughed, boyish in his knit cap and Beastie Boys T-shirt, far underdressed for the five-star restaurant. “No, no, not at all, I just… do you know much about my company?”

  Rahm sat back in his chair, admiring the scrawny white kid sitting across from him. “Why do you think I invited you here tonight?” he asked, nodding toward the jazz trio quietly performing atop a gently raised bandstand in the corner.

  Josh eyed them cooly. “I was wondering about that,” he murmured, pushing large red glasses up his pointy nose.

  “Your company aims to put acts like that out of business,” Rahm said, making Josh sit up and take notice of something more than all those zeros on the cashier’s check sitting between them.

  “Hardly,” he said, poised to argue before Rahm waved a comforting hand.

  “Not immediately,” Rahm said, “but eventually. My goal for the company is to slow production and increase funding for Research and Development so that live acts are accentuated, and not eliminated.”

  Josh rolled his eyes. “Live acts are dead, Mr. Farzik. Just look at how empty this place is.”

  Rahm snorted, savoring his priceless brandy before putting the snifter down. “It’s empty because I rented it out for our meeting, Josh. Typically this place has a six-month waiting list, namely for the trio you feel is so ‘outdated’. But why should people wait to hear such beautiful music when SoundCloud can broadcast it, live, in any number of restaurants?”

  Josh sat back, nodding appreciatively. “With the band getting a cut, of course,” he suggested.

  “Of course,
” Rahm said. “This way, smaller restaurants get to have live, beautiful music regardless of their budget, and smaller acts get wider recognition than the dining room they’re currently playing in.”

  Josh nodded, fingering the check more seriously now. “Funny,” he said, letting it fall back to the table as he admired the magnificent sunset outside their floor to ceiling window. “And I thought you brought me here for the view.”

  “Well,” Rahm said, trying to keep the boredom out of his voice. “That too.”

  “Are you a music fan?” Josh asked, turning back to him.

  “Not really,” Rahm confessed with an absent shrug. “But I’m a fan of opportunity, and the more I read up on your company, the more opportunity I saw for you, for myself, and acts like this one…” They both admired the trio, three older gentleman in tuxedos.

  Josh chuckled. “We typically deal in younger, more mainstream acts,” he confessed.

  “Then you’re denying yourself opportunity, Mr. Seigel,” Rahm said, eyes narrowing across the candlelit table. “The world is as old as it is young, and to limit your older audience is to cut profits in half.”

  Josh sat back, nodding as if impressed. For once, Rahm couldn’t blame him. In the 48-hours since Carly had seduced him – he could think of no better word for what had happened that savory, sultry night – Rahm had spent the time alternately waiting for her to call and assuring himself he’d been had.