by Sophia Lynn
She watched as he headed for the shower without a backwards glance. Somehow, despite the circumstances of their meeting, she had never felt abandoned until just this moment.
That was foolishness, wasn't it, though? They had an agreement, one that would leave her very wealthy no matter what happened. Why did she suddenly feel so lonely?
“Is there anything I should be doing here?” she asked as he came out. Feeling a bit like a bothersome child, she followed him to his room, where he dressed in Western clothes that fit him like a glove. In his charcoal suit, he looked every inch a man who ruled his country, and still draped in a sheet, she felt every inch a grubby girl from Queens.
“Not at all,” he said, glancing down at his phone. “Do as you please.”
He gave her an absent kiss on the forehead before he was out the door, and then she was alone.
“Well,” she said to the empty apartment. “What now?”
When the driver picked him up, Adnan got into the back seat, laying his phone aside.
By all rights, he should feel wonderful. Waking up to Emily's inquisitive hand was more pleasurable than he had ever dreamed something so innocent could be. When it came to passion, he had never met a woman who matched him so well. But when she had gazed after him like a lost puppy, he had felt an odd feeling of guilt followed by an iron resolve.
Emily had a peculiar pull on him, one that he couldn't explain. Good sense dictated that he send her home, where that attachment could not harm him, but he had proved incapable of that. Instead, he wanted to keep her close, but he needed to make sure that she wasn't going to rule over him entirely.
Boundaries were key, he decided. He could enjoy her, get to know her, revel in the paradise of her desire, but he would not allow her to gain a foothold in his entire life.
It was the only wise decision.
That all made sense, but throughout the day, Adnan found his thoughts drifting to her. When the minister of finance rattled off the numbers for the year, he thought of her beautiful gray eyes, and when someone was giving a presentation on military spending, he couldn’t stop thinking of her elegant, graceful hands.
By the end of the day, he was beyond frustrated with himself and snapping at the people who were meant to help him run his country. It was a relief when the workday was over, and when the driver asked if he wanted to stop at his favorite club, he told the man in no uncertain terms that he wanted to go to the penthouse.
It was surely not a weakness, Adnan thought, to be eager to see her. Her sweet body called to him, but if he were honest with himself, it was more than that. He missed her wit, her smile, her gentleness, and her beauty. When he came through the door, he was ready to cast the rest of the world aside to find refuge in her arms.
At least, that was what Adnan would have done if she were there.
After a brief moment of surprise, a search revealed that the penthouse was completely empty. For a moment, he was struck with an icicle of fear straight through his heart, but then his eye fell on a note, one that was left right where his own had been for her the night before.
Adnan,
I hope everything went well today! If you are reading this, I decided to go out for a walk to see what could be seen. As you know, I have never been to Nahr before!
Talk to you soon!
—Emily
For a moment, he simply stared down at the note with a complete lack of understanding of what it meant. Then, his jaw tightening, he went back to the elevator, already thumbing up his list of contacts on his phone.
Chapter Thirteen
People were the same no matter where you went, Emily decided happily. Just about everyone loved coffee and sweets, and just about everyone had time for a good musician.
She had spent a few hours wandering up and down the downtown streets of Nahr, impressed at every turn by the city's size and grace. It was a truly cosmopolitan place, with people dressed in everything from the most fashionable Western attire to the most traditional local robes.
Emily had been heading back to the penthouse when she noticed a small out-of-the-way coffeehouse tucked off a small quiet street. She was tickled to find that it was so similar to the ones that she played at, complete with surly and uninterested teen barista and a musician with a guitar at the front.
The guitarist was a man perhaps a few years older than her, with a wide smile and tousle of dark curly hair. He noticed that she was watching his set early on, and after that, it seemed as if he directed every song he sang straight at her.
Emily couldn't help hiding a smile, and she was unsurprised when he came to speak to her after his set.
“So you like music?” he said with a grin.
“I do,” she replied innocently. “I was just thinking that your guitar is gorgeous.”
He nodded, a hint of real pride on his face. “Here, do you want to hold it?”
“Ooh, can I?” She cooed over the guitar for a moment, and then she glanced up at him. “Do you mind if I play it for a while?”
“Of course you…”
She assumed that he was gearing up to tell her that she could play it all she liked at his place, but she didn't give him a chance to finish.
“Thanks!”
With nothing more than that, she was scampering up on the stage, and oh god, had she missed this. Over the last couple weeks, she’d had to be many things, woman, survivor, slave, and something else, but underneath it all, she was relieved to find, was the musician she had always been.
The moment her fingers touched the strings, all of her expertise and practice came rushing back, and she started strumming a sweet song about home and hearts.
She kept her eyes half-closed as she played, but she was always aware of her audience. She could sense them responding to her song, drawn in by the pull of the notes and their resonance in the still air. She could sense the musician whose guitar she cradled, watching her first with bafflement and then with a professional approval that warmed her. This was where she belonged, doing the thing that had given her purpose for years. No matter what happened, this could never be taken away from her.
During her improvised set, she started thinking of Adnan, of his warm smile, his protective frame, the way he kissed her so sweetly it felt as if her soul were flying out of her body. At some point, instead of playing for herself, she began playing for him.
It was the most honest performance she had ever given, and in that moment, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was completely in love with him. In the back part of her mind, she was be terrified. She was be a woman in a foreign country with a man who seemed to see her as some kind of superior amusement, unsure of what was going to happen.
In this moment, however, lost in the daze of her own music and her fingers sure on the nylon strings, it seemed simple.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
When she opened her eyes to thunderous applause, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to meet Adnan's eyes across the smoky room. She smiled at him reflexively, but with a sinking heart, she realized that he was coming towards her, his eyes stormy.
She handed the guitar back to the musician, who took one look at Adnan and got out of the way. She had to admit, the musician knew what he was doing. Right now, Adnan looked barely short of murderous.
“If you know what is good for you, you'll get into the car right now,” he said tightly.
A part of Emily wanted to toss her head and defy him. After all, she could easily have argued that nothing they had talked about prevented her from going out, from doing the things that she loved. But one look at his face told her that this was a bad idea, so she fell into step behind him, even as she simmered with irritation.
Once they were in the car, Adnan turned to her balefully.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” he snapped as the car pulled into traffic. “Do you have any idea how many men have been looking for you?”
She started to snap back at him, but the wo
rds caught her by surprise.
“Men?” she asked. “Who in the world did you have looking for me?”
“My personal security staff,” he retorted. “I pulled them from every location I could and sent them out looking for you.”
“I see,” she replied, and then she turned to him. “And now long did it take to find me?”
He paused, watching her with a certain amount of wariness. “Less than an hour.”
“Right. So can we agree that it wasn't like I was trying to make myself hard to find? And that I was in a well-lit public place with plenty of people around?”
“I had no idea where you were,” he said, his voice stony. “You could have been hurt or worse. You might have been kidnapped.”
Well, it's not like it hadn't happened before, she thought. For a moment, she wanted to start a fight then and there, but instead, she sighed, leaning back against the smooth car seat.
“I don't really want to fight,” she said after a moment. “But as far as I knew there would be no problem with me leaving the house because after all, I am not a slave or prisoner. What should I do instead?”
“Take a bodyguard with you,” he said promptly, and she gave him a narrow look.
“Do you take a bodyguard with you wherever you go?”
She was oddly gratified by his look of surprise.
“I don't…”
“And seeing as I am not nearly as important as the sheikh of Nahr, I don't see why I might need one. Can we try something else?”
“What do you propose?”
“You give me a phone, and I can text you what I'm up to. Then I'd have a way to get in touch with you, and also to see what's been going on in the world. I feel like I've missed out on a lot.”
For a moment, she didn't think that Adnan was going to budge on that, but then he nodded reluctantly.
“It was something I wanted to give you any way, and the phones that I keep have a panic button on them. If anything goes wrong, you can press it and have a security detail dispatched to your location immediately.”
Emily chuckled a little wryly. “That's more than I really need, but sure, the thought is nice. Is that all right? Have we settled this?”
Adnan nodded cautiously. She was just beginning to wonder whether he was the type who kept a fight going long past the time when it should have been history, but then he leaned back against the seat and sighed as well.
“We have,” he said. “I am sorry that I was so angry. It was only when I couldn't find you…I was terrified that something had happened to you.”
“But it didn't,” she said softly, smiling at him.
Almost by instinct, she took his hand, and they rode the rest of the way to the penthouse like that.
“You have to admit, I really do make a poor slave,” she mentioned as they came into the room.
“On the contrary, I think you make an excellent one.” He uttered the words casually, stripping his jacket off and dumping it on the chair.
Emily gazed at him curiously. “How do you mean? As far as I can tell, I am defiant, I like my own way, and I talk back. From what they told me at the compound, that makes me as poor a slave as any that ever set foot there…”
“You need the right owner, of course,” he said lazily, watching her from across the room with his hands folded over his chest. “But for the right man, the man who finds your antics amusing rather than maddening, and who has taken the time to…properly discipline you…you would be quite the prize.”
She bristled at the word discipline even as a part of her thrilled at the idea of being his prize. God, what was this man doing to her?
“And do you think that you are the man who is fit to discipline me, then, my lord?” She placed a hard emphasis on the words, but to her surprise, he only grinned widely.
“What are you thinking of?” he asked, his voice mild. “Do you think I am so crude as to resort to whips and paddles, starvation, other barbarous things?”
She couldn't help noticing how sharp and white his teeth were, and that brought up the memory of him nibbling at her skin, finding all the perfect places that would set her on fire.
“I have no idea what to expect from you from day to day,” she confessed, and he chuckled.
“Well, it is good to know that I am not being predictable at any rate. No, you are a special case, and even if I think that your rear would turn an adorable shade of red if I applied my hand to it, you need something else if I want to keep you in line.”
Emily realized that she had lost control of this situation. She backed away from him as he stalked her with all the lordly grace of a panther. It was as if he knew that she wasn't getting away, that he had all the time in the world to catch her.
“No,” he continued, “I think that when it comes to discipline, you respond more to the carrot than the stick. I can imagine tying you up, and then kissing you all over, running my tongue along every part of you…”
“That doesn't sound like much of a punishment,” she protested, but he shook his head.
“I am hardly done. No, I would arouse you. I would put every bit of my cleverness into raising up the fire that burns so beautifully between us. I would use my fingers, my lips, my entire body to make you feel good. I would play you like you played that guitar. I would want you to sing as soon as I touched you.”
“Still doesn't sound like much of a punishment…”
At some point, Emily had stopped backing away. Instead, she felt hypnotized, staring at him as he came closer step by casual step. When he was close enough that she could kiss him just by leaning up, he halted, still smiling.
“I would want to feel how wet you got for me. I would want to feel your body lunge in its bonds, desperate for what I could do for you. I would want you to whimper so pleadingly for the release that I have given you before and will give you again…”
“And then?” she asked, slightly breathless. His words were a soft caress right between her legs. She could almost feel his fingertips gliding along her body, making her keen with need.
“And then? Then comes the discipline. I would leave you there. I would take my hands off of you, and then I would let that fire lick you without burning you. You would twist and turn with need, but with your hands and feet bound, there would be nothing you could do about it.”
Emily let out a loud whimper before she caught herself. She could feel it, the heat of his touch, and then then unbearable cold as he pulled away. At some point, she had clenched her fists hard, and now, glaring at Adnan, she forced them loose.
“That was mean,” she said accusingly, and he laughed, a rich and dark sound.
“It was supposed to be, little one,” he said cheerfully. “Perhaps next time, you will think twice about misbehaving.”
There was a kind of safety and quiet in their sleep that night. She went to join him in his room, and though she was disappointed when he had to leave early again, she found a present for her in the living room.
The guitar case was old and battered, but she gasped when she pulled out the instrument it contained. It glowed with the sheen of a well-loved guitar, and when she plucked a perfectly-tuned string, the mellow resonance of the note made her shiver.
Dearest,
You play beautifully. I got up this morning, and I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I had my assistant dig this old wonder out of storage and get it ready for you. She was my grandfather's, who was a classical guitarist in his day. I think he would be touched if you wanted to keep his guitar. I know that I would be honored.
Perhaps you will think of me when you play it.
—Adnan
She smiled as she took the guitar reverently, marveling at how good it felt in her arms.
She already knew that when she played it, she would think of him, and as her fingers drew along the taut strings, she was already writing a song.
Chapter Fourteen
After that, their days fell into a pattern. At night, they would make love, and perhaps
in the morning, they would eat breakfast together. Then Adnan would leave, and in the evening, perhaps they would attend some sort of event together.
The first time Emily found herself in the newspaper, glowing like a star on Adnan's arm, she felt a sting of panic.
“They can't print this,” she said, agitated. “I never said that they could!”
Adnan glanced at it over his breakfast and shrugged.
“They can, actually, since it’s the newspaper. I am a public figure, and that makes me—and by extension you—newsworthy. In general, my family has been on good terms with that photographer and that publication. I can request it be retracted, but I fail to see the reason to do so.”
Emily looked at the picture—she was looking at something Adnan was pointing at, a slight smile on her face. The caption at the bottom called her “the sheikh's entrancing new companion,” a phrase that made her strangely anxious.
“They like you,” Adnan said, brushing the matter aside. “Right now, everyone is excited to see who I am keeping company with. It'll die down eventually.”
She bit her lip. The picture felt like a lie, she finally decided. In it, they looked like a carefree couple out for a night on the town. That was technically true, but it didn't tell the whole story—of her kidnapping and Adnan's rescue or heroism. She would have swept it aside if Adnan hadn't mentioned one more thing.
“Honestly, they are probably excited to have anything exciting to print about me.”
“Oh? The fact that you do desert rescues isn't enough?” she teased.
He laughed. “That's old news as far as Nahr is concerned,” he said with a wry grin. “I've been doing that sort of thing since I was twenty. No, they're excited that I am stepping out with a woman again. I had a bit of a reputation, but after my father died…well, it simply seemed less important.”
Emily blinked. She had somehow formed the impression that Adnan was some kind of playboy. He certainly had the lifestyle to warrant it, but when she thought about it, she had seen no signs that he was eager to return to the nightlife she imagined he had.
