by Ella Brooke
“What?”
“You think that I wouldn’t spoil my new bride rotten? We’re leaving soon to a secret location.”
“As long as there are no manacles involved.” Olivia’s tone was light, but her eyes held shadows of sadness in them.
He grabbed her hands delicately between his own. “I’m sorry for what Waheed wanted.”
“But you’re the sheikh.”
“He has security protocols that bypass me, but I promise you’ll never be locked away again. It’s nothing I’d ever do to you. For all intents and purposes, you’re the queen of Yomarani now, and I will treat you exactly as that role requires.”
He was rewarded by the hint of pink that touched the tips of her flushed cheeks. “You would?”
“Of course I would.”
She nodded. “Then I’d be happy to go with you. Until Celeste took me abroad on vacation, I hadn’t really seen the world. I’d traveled it, but I’d only been relegated to the inside of ballrooms and my hotel room.”
“Huh?” He quirked his head at her, intrigued by how one could travel so often without experiencing the world around them.
She shook her head, and he was mesmerized for a moment by her cascade of red hair. “I was this assistant for a designer. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Monsieur Labelle?”
“My little sister wears some of his creations, but he’s not her top design choice, no.”
“I worked for him for years. I was always the one doing the last minute hems at shows and making sure the models looked perfect. I slaved away for him, and he still fired me. I know I made a mistake, but even if we traveled to Paris and Milan and a dozen other gorgeous cities, I never got to see anything but the plane and the hotel. He was the one schmoozing and I was the one fixing. I was mostly lucky to see my bed in the hotel if I could sneak a nap to keep working.”
“Was that what you always wanted to do?” he asked, concern coloring his words. How could anyone have used up such a precious flower and not have acknowledged her worth? To just waste her was beyond him. How could anyone not see how special she was, see her as he did? “Just assist?”
She ran a hand through her hair and then frowned sheepishly back at him. Pulling her hand down, she handed him the stray emerald broach she’d managed to dislodge from her hair. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”
“You can keep it. It’s yours now of course.”
“It’s worth so much.”
He reached out and stroked her cheek once again. “So are you. Did you want more than assisting?”
“I did, but after a couple of years, I should have known that Monsieur Labelle had found his free labor and his work horse. He was never going to look at my designs and then help me get established. I think somewhere in the past year, I just let my dream die out and was going through the motions. When it happened last month, Celeste said that me getting fired was the best thing that could ever have happened to me. I’m beginning to think she’s right.”
“Why thank you.”
“It’s not all about you, actually,” she replied, breaking away from him and giving Rami a coy wink. “I had a vacation for the first time in years, and yes, I met someone. No matter how unconventional this all is, I’m finally living my life.”
“But you’d like to be a designer someday?”
“I want a lot of things, but I’m not sure I was ever good enough.”
“You promise me you’ll show me some designs, won’t you?”
“I don’t need you to back me just because I’m a sheikha now.”
He held up his hands defensively. “I never said I would. It’s just clearly important to you, and I like meeting a fellow artist.”
She scrunched up her nose at him in confusion, and it was the most adorable movement he’d ever seen. “You’re a designer?”
“No, but when I was a teenager---and please don’t laugh---I was very much into comic books. I used to draw my own.”
Olivia shook her head. “I’d never do that to you. Why do you think I’d laugh?”
“Because I know it’s foolish. Father used to say…well, I stopped drawing when I got to Cambridge for school. It was a ‘boy’s thing,’ he always said.”
“Ha! I knew it!”
“You knew I drew?” he asked, intrigued by her perception.
“No, but I knew you’d been to England. I can hear that Brit in your voice, just a bit.” She started to pace. “My parents never understood why I designed. My father’s an accountant for Christ’s sakes. He just assumed I’d ‘grow out of it.’ There’s a reason I didn’t go home for Christmas or other holidays much. I don’t think it’s silly. If you liked comics, then draw them.”
“I don’t have time for it now. Besides, some things just seemed so dark, like ashes, after I’ve lost so much. I don’t think I could draw a brightly colored world again. You’re the first bit of light I’ve had in a long time.”
“Gaila mentioned you’d had a hard life. I’m sorry about your father and the rebels. I can understand now how Waheed can be so intense about security.”
“He blames himself. Life in Yomarani, in all of the Middle East, isn’t always safe. In fact, as you Americans like to say, it’s probably a massive understatement to say there are risks here. This palace is well guarded, and so you will always be here with me. My father went to check the front lines of a skirmish, and he did not come home.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“I’m managing. I love my people, and I try to serve them.”
She nodded and then worried her lower lip. “I…never mind.”
“What?”
“Is that all this is? I have a feeling you miss more than your parents. Gaila wouldn’t say.”
“And I love her for that. There are many wounds on a heart. The ones that have passed…I cannot talk about them. It makes it more real just to think over what I’ve lost. It would make it impossible to speak about it out loud. Besides, we have a private jet to catch.”
“What?”
He grinned and slipped one of the silk scarves from last night from his pocket. “I want to keep it a surprise.”
She scoffed. “Maybe you want to keep playing kinky games with me.”
He leaned down over her as he tied the bright pink and yellow scarf over her eyes. “Of course, but this afternoon, Red? This afternoon we fly.”
Chapter Ten
Olivia had no idea that Rami had flying on his mind in more ways than one. After their jet landed in Dubai, they spent the night eating at one of the best French restaurants in the city, and then resting back at their suite. She was surprised that he didn’t want to do more, especially since she’d left him waiting last night after she’d nodded off to sleep. However, he’d insisted that they’d need their rest. Olivia had no idea how much. After all, when her alarm went off at four a.m. Dubai time, she wanted to chuck her phone across the room. If she’d had the money to replace her smartphone, she might have. Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered. After all, Rami’s phone pinged as well and the front desk called them. Groggily, Olivia wiped the sleep from her eyes and pouted a bit. He’d had no time for that though. He helped her grab layers, an actual set of jeans and a jacket for the cool pre-dawn hours in the city, and then whisked her away to his secret surprise.
“Wow,” she said, her voice ringing out against the gas pouring from the burners. The great swaths of colored fabric was laid out before both of them, and the basket of the hot air balloon seemed large enough to fit a phalanx of people. It was not just a three or four person affair. “This is what you had planned?”
Rami nodded and rubbed her shoulders. “Are you too cold? It has to be early so we can watch the sunrise from a completely different angle, but in the desert without the sun pouring through, the mornings can have bite.”
“No, the jacket’s fine. I spent most of the last six months working in New York, and we have winters like you wouldn’t believe.”
He chuckled and stroked his goatee
. “Yes, I’ve been there before.”
She looked down at the sand and blushed.
Of course he has. Rami’s seen everything by now. I’m the one who’s been shut away and working too hard.
“What’s your favorite spot in the Big Apple?” he asked, taking her hand in his as the balloon finally finished filling with air. If it weren’t for the ropes holding it down, Olivia was sure it would have blown off. “I’ve always loved Times Square. It thrums with life. Mother said, of course, it was so different decades ago, but now I just love a place that has so many people.”
“You love people, don’t you?”
“I love my people best of all. I do what I can to support them and to keep them safe. I don’t know if I always succeed in the best way possible, but I do everything I can. I think being social just comes from my family. Mother was quite the debutante and Father had a way with our subjects that I envy even now.”
The man inflating the hot air balloon, a slight man in a baggy grey sweater, called over to Rami in a language she couldn’t follow. Most likely Arabic, but she wouldn’t know. Then he gestured to the door of the basket.
Rami’s smile broadened as he led her to the basket and settled her there. There were benches for sitting, if anyone felt faint, but on this private ride, Olivia had her sheikh to keep her safe. Besides, she’d never seen the world from this perspective, and the last thing she wanted was to sit away on a bench, playing it safe.
I’m done with being safe and boring.
He stood behind her, his shoulders firm against her. His body felt a bit like a furnace and she could feel the heat pouring off of him as well as the hardness of his length already pressing against the small of her back through the fabric of their clothes. Her heart stuttered and beat more fiercely after that. She wanted him, and last night hadn’t given her a chance to enjoy him. To taste him as he had her.
Olivia vowed to correct that mistake once they were back at the hotel.
Rami moved his hands to her shoulders and began to massage them even as there was a massive blast of the burners and the ropes were cut. Soon they were lifting into the sky. The sun had started creeping over the horizon as the balloon was filled. Now she could spy the hints of magenta, gold, and aquamarine flashing over the sky. Once they were above the cloud line, she watched as the swirls of nimbuses---looking so like a child’s cotton candy treat---moved below her and turned amber from the sun’s growing light.
Her sheikh’s voice, low and raw, was in her ears. “You didn’t answer my question. What’s your favorite place in the city?”
“I should say something fancy like the MoMa, some place with art that everyone can enjoy, especially considering my love for design. I like the quiet though. There’s this small copse of trees in Central Park that I’d go to late in the afternoon but well before dark. I’d take a late lunch and just sketch what I loved and think of dress designs. People would sometimes jog by, but it mostly felt like my own wooded oasis in the city. It was amazing.”
He pressed against her, and she instinctively leaned back against his hardness. “Was it as amazing as this?”
They’d moved back below the clouds again, and she could see the fields of green before her, the patches of irrigated land that made up the city of Dubai. Now, they were high enough in the clouds that the towering spires looked like kids’ toys. Mostly, she was awed by the wide expanse of desert, the rolling dunes, and the mountains rising on the horizon. Somewhere far beyond their foggy peaks lay the country of Oman, and it felt as if she could see all the way there if she just squinted enough. It felt as if anything were possible when she rode high above the sands with the man she was surprisingly growing to care for.
Arching her neck up, Olivia twisted around until she could kiss him. “This is the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever done for me. You have no idea how much I love this, but I can try and show you.”
With that, she opened her mouth wide and accepted his probing tongue, accepted the taste of him, like coffee and cinnamon still so early in the morning. Cloves hit her nose and the stubble of his face scraped against her cheek. His tongue tangled with hers, engaging in a delicate dance. They stayed like that for what seemed like hours, but at least was enough time for the sun to be blazing across the desert and her to have to break away from him to remove her jacket.
The little man running the balloon said nothing, although he did wink at her when she looked around the basket and straightened her hair.
Rami threaded his fingers through hers and kissed her cheek. “I have so much I want to show you. This is just the beginning.”
“I’d like that.”
***
That night after seeing Carmen, they went back to the suite. She’d never had such an amazing day---the breakfast on the dunes, shopping at the mall, and then her first opera. It was so many things she never could have dreamed of, slaving away like Cinderella and the mice in the proverbial Disney cartoon while trying to finish dress after dress for runway models. Now she had butterflies fluttering through her stomach and warmth flaring through her belly and parts farther south. Her most sensitive bundle of nerves was already throbbing between her legs.
Rami shut the door behind her and stripped off his blazer. Even though he still wore his tailored, button up shirt, Olivia could see the lines of his torso, the breadth of his shoulder. He was gorgeous, like her own personal Adonis, and part of her was so glad for the chances she’d taken. Part of her wanted desperately to have the freedom to move around and to return to her home. Yet right now in the glamorous suite, with the delectable fruit baskets and sumptuous king bed and with the moonlight streaming in through the windows, there was no place that Olivia would rather be.
At least for the night.
Grinning at him, she slipped the shawl off her shoulders. Striding over to him, she draped her hands over Rami’s shoulders and squeezed them tightly. “I’ve never done opera before.”
“Oh, so I’m dating a Philistine. What a pity. Had you never heard Bizet before?”
“I’ve never heard any of it before. I honestly expected fat women in Viking horns. I didn’t expect it all to be so catchy.”
“Then maybe you’ll enjoy Mozart and Wagner too, although Wagner has the Viking women and the Valkyries. Maybe you won’t like that.”
“I have all the songs in my head though.” She kissed him and then started to hum one of the catchier numbers from the opera, twisting her hips in time with the rhythm galloping through her head. “It was very catchy.”
He grabbed her by the waist and spun her around. “I think you’re alluring when you dance for me. I love the way you twist your hips, the way you entice me, Red.” Rami set her down again. “We have the whole night together, and I want to make my wife as happy as possible. What can I do for you?”
She giggled, feeling lightheaded from the champagne she had earlier at the party after the opera. Some of the warmth spiraling through her was more than just her anticipation of tonight, some of it were the bubbles from the alcohol still swirling through her.
“You can do anything you want.”
Rami leaned down and traced his tongue over her neck and then flicked his tongue against the hollow of her throat, the dip in her collarbone. She moaned and gripped his shoulders, dragging him closer to her. She pushed her hips against his, anticipating the need for his hardness against her. Rami hissed and grazed his teeth over the skin of her neck. Goose bumps erupted over her flesh and she mewled, feeling not like a kitten but more like a wild cat, like a lioness whose inner passion had been unleashed for the first time.
She moved her hands to the buttons of his shirt and began to unbutton him, peeling back each button one at a time. The moon played lovingly over the bronzed skin of Rami’s chest, and she licked her lips at the few stray hairs curling up from around his nipples. He was, ahem, somewhat manscaped, but still kept natural enough to be appealing. Leaning forward, she traced her tongue over the rim of one nipple, then the other. She r
elished how he moaned beneath her and the hard peaks she was able to raise with his nipples. Over the right side of his chest, she grazed her teeth just so, letting him feel the bluntness of her incisors.
Then she kept up her intensity, running her fingernails down the exposed skin of his torso and pressing just enough to raise a bit of welt on his abdomen. She was being the devil that she’d always been, letting the wild out of her.
“My, my, my sheikh, I think you’re ready for so very much. I think I’m going to set the tempo this time.”
Rami laughed, a low, rumbling sound that seeped deep into her stomach and even seemed to call to the growing wetness between the apex of her thighs. Then he let his hand go low and slid it up her shin, then her thigh. Eventually, probing fingers found her secret lips and stroked the skin there with languid, taunting motions.
“Oh, Red, you have no idea what I’m capable of. In life and in love, I always set the tempo. You have to understand that.”
His stroking grew more intense and one stray finger made its way into her channel, probing her depths. “You feel so ready for me, so eager. I can do anything to you right now, and you’d let me, wouldn’t you?”
Olivia took in a shuddering breath as she struggled to process with the energy and sparks surging through her. It was as if she’d been shocked by the largest static shock of her life, as if her body was reduced to nothing more than warring electrical impulses building through her. It was hard with all those sensations to think at all, but she was able to gasp out a reply.
“Yes, please yes.”
“Do you trust me?”
Not with everything, not yet with my full heart.
She didn’t dare say that, but with her body and her desire? Yes, Olivia trusted that. He’d brought her to the heights of pleasure she’d never known. Olivia wanted to feel that all over again.
“I want you.”
Rami faltered for a moment, his smile seeming to freeze on his face. It only lasted a few seconds, but he was telling her more than he realized with that brief moment of hesitation. Even sheikhs weren’t immune to slights on their heart.
