by Ella Brooke
He flinched. “You were ready for the ‘love’ stage.”
“No, but I wanted to explore what’s between us. I don’t know how it can be anything now but you seeing me as a brood mare. I hate that.”
“If I don’t have a child and soon, then Abir will be the sheikh and he will drag my country back to the Stone Age, and into pointless wars. He’ll support terrorist groups and other awful things with Zomelia’s rich resources. I can’t let that happen.”
“Then ask a Zomeli girl.”
“I could, but I don’t want to.”
“Why?” she asked, throwing her hands up in the air. “What could be so special about me?”
He strode across the width of the tent, wrapped one arm around her shoulders, and reached out with the other to touch one, auburn braid. “If you have to ask that, then you don’t know how valuable you are, how amazing.”
“I don’t know if I can do what you’re asking.”
“It’s not about marriage or forever. It could be, if we feel that between us some day. We can both work to let it grow, to nurture it. It can be a deal, too. I’ll give you ten million dollars to have my heir, and after the first year and nursing, you can leave, no strings attached and no other caveats.”
“How can I trust that now?” she asked, even as she felt the heat of his breath against her cheek. That traitorous heat flared through her belly and wetness pooled between her legs. Even as mad as she was, Brenda still wanted him. She craved his touch like an addict needed heroin, and she wanted it even now.
With ten million dollars, she’d never have to work again. There would be a safety net for Haley in case anything like the car accident ever happened again. It would mean she could finally rest and do what she wanted after years of servitude. But what she wanted was Jamsheed, and he broke their trust.
“It’s not only about deals and security. All you had to do was trust me enough to tell me the truth in London. I know you need help, and I’ve already met Abir. He’s a nasty ass. The last thing I’d want to do is condemn a country to his craziness. You only had to trust me, but you didn’t. You gave me pretty words and promises, but now I can never know if you would have been with me or me or because you’re working against the clock.”
His hand stroked over her cheek, and she shivered even as the heat flared through her more fiercely. Jamsheed had so much power over her, and she knew in her heart of hearts that she was about to let him have more. After all, there was no way she’d walk away from this and, deep down, she knew it wasn’t just about Zomelia’s future.
It was about the way he made her feel alive, like a jolt of electricity through a heart that had long been left too dormant and almost dead.
I can’t trust him.
And yet, if she walked out now, her life would never have color again, never have the potential to be a fraction as exciting.
“I… we can do this, but I don’t know how I can ever trust you again.”
He nodded and grinned back at her. That devil’s smirk, that Let’s Make a Deal smile. “I have two years to win you back, to prove to you that I can love you and whatever child we bring into this world together. I promise you, Brenda, that you’re right. I could have chosen any woman, and I still could, but there’s only one I want, only one I dream nightly about and have for months now. It’s you.”
Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she swallowed hard. It was everything she ever needed to hear. Things she’d never heard, but she couldn’t trust it now. Not with the stakes for him and for his kingdom. This was about slaking her lust and about saving Zomelia, about the fact that she couldn’t quit him even though she knew she had to someday, or it would crush her.
She offered him a pained smile, it was the best she could do to try and match his own expression. “I promise we’ll work to save your kingdom, that I’ll honor my end of the bargain, but let’s not promise anymore tonight. We have to see how things go, if both our hearts can take it. Right now, Jamsheed?”
“Yes, my fiery phoenix?”
“Just fuck me. It’s the only thing we can agree on.”
He nodded and led her back to the collection of silk pillows on the divan, far from the food and rest of the furniture. If she’d been thinking more clearly, she might have noticed a set up when she saw one.
But it wasn’t a set up, not really. It was a trade. She needed to feel… anything, really, and he needed an heir. As long as she remembered it wasn’t about her as a person, that he didn’t love her, then her heart wouldn’t get crushed.
She sat down on the divan and leaned her head back. He kissed her lips, hungrily, like a man who’d been starving at sea and finally come home to feast, as if they hadn’t tasted each other in the past. His tongue swept over hers with such urgency that she almost would have thought this was a dying man living out his last wish. Then he nibbled at her lower lip, scraped his teeth over it just so that it left her moaning under his onslaught, left her mewling and arching her neck more overtly.
He took that cue as well, moving his mouth from hers, positioning his teeth so they skidded lightly over the soft skin of her neck. As he did that, it was like a small, gentle wave of warm water lapped at her body, tickled her belly and her inner core. Then he laved at her neck, licking and suckling at it with enough force that she knew she’d be marked in the morning, bruised with hickies.
It seemed fair, seemed right. She was going to do what he needed, be who and what he needed. In exchange, she should be marked as well. She would be able to show that the sheikh of Zomelia was hers… at least until he changed his mind.
Jamsheed pulled away from her for just a moment. “Can you take off your top? I want to ask permission for everything.”
She bit back a snarky comment about how now he wanted full disclosure now that she was in the deserts of a foreign country with him, but she didn’t. Sarcasm was for the young and disaffected, for girls putting up fronts. Brenda should know. She was long since grown, and she knew she made her own decisions. Now she was embracing those choices, no matter how reckless they might become.
So, she snaked her hands behind her back and undid the few straps that kept it in place and let the bandolier fall to the floor beside her. Brenda sat up straighter, letting the sheikh appraise the appeal of her breasts. He licked his lips at her dusky-rose peaks, then reached out and planted one big palm—hands still surprising her with their callused nature—on each of her soft mounds.
He kneaded them, massaging them with expert aplomb. His talented mouth was back on her own, his tongue twisting with and teasing her own. She mewled under him, and then, without realizing it, thrust her body against his, shoving her legs towards his own. The words escaped from her mouth, muffled by his onslaught but still obvious between them.
“More.”
“I can make this feel so good, phoenix. I can make you roll in waves of pleasure for hours.”
She nodded and broke away long enough to full see him, to see the hunger and need brimming in his eyes, like a ferocious tiger on the prowl. “I know, but this time, right now, I want you. I feel like I’m going to explode right now, blast apart into a thousand pieces. Please, just make me feel good now. There can be time for slow later.”
“Will there?”
She kissed him. “Please, my sheikh, don’t tease any longer. I’m desperate for you.”
His nostrils flared, and the wetness spread over her panties. Her body ached or him, her pearl throbbed between her thighs. Her feelings were more tangled than ever, but this wasn’t about them, not now. This was about the sensation, about diving over the cliff into the ocean of ecstasy before her and letting it sweep her out to sea.
“As you wish, my phoenix.”
His fingers threaded under the waist band of her pants and he tugged on them. Brenda took the cue and raised her hips up. The fabric of her pants and underwear slid easily off her legs, and she didn’t even shiver in the wind and the night’s chill.
Oh, she did shiver, but with a
nticipation. With need. She wanted him, even with all he’d done. She wanted him inside of her, to feel that complete.
He knelt before her, kissing his way up her left thigh and then nuzzled the soft thatch of hair between her legs. “So soft, like the most gentle of thickets.”
She laughed. “Those are lines for a younger girl, Jamsheed. I don’t need roses and violets, I don’t need purple prose, but I will say that, yes, I am a natural redhead.”
“I see that,” he replied, nuzzling her again. Jamsheed brought his head lower and then she bucked her hips as he traced his tongue over her most secret lips. She cursed loudly, glad they were out in the middle of nowhere in the desert.
“God, Jamsheed, never stop.”
His tongue flicked quickly over her sex, lapping up the juices there and occasionally tickling her pleasure button. The waves were crashing over her, all that pleasure and all that rapture, as if she were being tossed in a boat at sea. When he stood up, she dug her fingernails into the cushion of the divan in desperation.
“Am I being punished?!”
He laughed, a warm buttery sound, even as he unzipped his jeans. “Of course not.”
Brenda’s eyes widened. “I said that out loud?”
“I can’t blame you. I don’t think you’re aware of too much right now.”
“I just… why?”
He shucked off his jeans, and her mouth watered at the sight of his erection, the thickness of him springing free. She’d been with a few men over her years. Yet she’d never seen one in person as long and thick as his.
She licked her lips and her rosebud quivered between her legs.
“Are you on the pill?” he asked. “I would do this either way, but I wanted to know if this would be a fruitful attempt.”
“Emphasis on the fruit?” she said, her voice taking on wry tone. Brenda laughed, letting the tension of the last little bit leave from her. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she’d guard her heart. Tonight, there was him and the destiny threading between them.
“Indeed,” he said, climbing over her.
She relished that feeling, the heft of him over her, the scrape of his stubble against her cheek. That turmeric hanging in the air between them—spice and exoticness and promises. Oh, the promise.
His member pressed against her opening, and she dug her heels into the divan.
“Please, I need you, my sheikh.”
Jamsheed leaned lower and brushed his nose against the side of throat. “I’ll give you everything, my phoenix.”
“Thank you.”
His length slid inside of her honey pot, inch by tantalizing inch. The heat of him, the girth, all of it filled her in a way that she’d never felt before. She was complete in a way that she’d never been, beyond him filling her core, as if his soul was filling her own as well. Tears prickled at the corner of her eyes, and Brenda blinked them away rapidly.
God, don’t let him see you cry.
She knew what this was, knew it was just a deal. He made promises to her that it could be more, but there were no guarantees. That was what she knew of life. Walls had to be kept up, boundaries maintained.
No guarantees.
There was just the here and now, and for right now, he was inside of her, thrusting thoroughly and plumbing her depths. She wrapped her legs around his waist, angling her body so that he could hit just the right spot. His member brushed against her pearl, and she screamed.
“God, yes, just like that.”
Eyes wide open, she watched as he pumped into her. His jaw was set in a grim line and his amber eyes bored into her own. Again, that sense of connection flared between them. It was as if the sheikh could see through her, see into her very soul. That connection, so very powerful, almost as if a cord tying between them, tethering her to him and to Zomelia now.
The waves crested higher and higher and she was so close.
Then, he came. His seed flooded inside of her and it was as if her very womb clenched with it. The waves crescendoed, sweeping her away in a tsunami of heat and need and ecstasy. She shuddered under all of it, and the lay back against the divan as her body tried to regain its strength.
Jamsheed cleaned himself. Lying down with her, he held her close and stroked her hair, careful around the broaches now only half-attached to her waves and braids. “Just rest, my phoenix, my sheikha. Rest, and everything else will come, I promise.”
As her eyes drifted shut, only one thought flittered through her mind.
I wish that were true.
Chapter Eight
Six Weeks Later…
“Mom! You look good,” Haley said, as she tilted her camera a bit. For a moment, Brenda lost sight of anything but her daughter’s knees over the Skype connection. “You’re so tan.”
She laughed, running her hand through her brassy curls. Her hair had gone from auburn to a fiery red, matching the feathers of the mythical phoenix that Jamsheed so often teased her about. “That’s the great part about living in Zomelia as opposed to being trapped in London fog and long nights. How are you doing, honey?”
“Good. I quit my sorority.”
Brenda breathed a sigh of relief but schooled her features back to neutral as soon as she could. It might be that Haley was still upset about that choice. “Oh, did you?”
Haley laughed. “Mom, you are the worst actress. I bet you’re super relived I’ve done it.”
“I think that maybe some of your friends there weren’t really your friends, and you were making poor decisions. After the car accident, I was really scared about you making the same mistake again.”
“That’s the definition of insanity. I was trying to move on from that.”
“Good.”
“But you’re still deflecting a little from how amazing you look. I was worried about Sheikh Rahal at first, about his reputation, but the news has been covering how caring he’s been about his father and the new laws he’s trying to enact for his people. I think he’s really a better man than I thought.”
“Thanks, I think,” Brenda said, winking at her. “I know I’m just your old mom to you, but I’ve learned a thing or two as well.”
Haley smiled, a brilliant megawatt look that had always been her daughter’s best feature, something she’d had even as a toddler. On nights when she hadn’t slept, when the days after were long and hard as hell, Brenda would see that smile and know that everything was going to okay. That raising Haley was the most important job she could ever have; the only job she’d ever truly want.
“I’m super glad,” she said. “You do deserve it.”
“Yes, in fact…” Brenda felt it then, the surge of bile rising in her throat and the wave of nausea overtaking her.
Bolting up quickly, ignoring the confused shouts of her daughter, she lunged for the bathroom. She made it in time to unload the contents of her stomach into the porcelain bowl. The heaving wracked her body, causing her back to arch up, even as she emptied her breakfast into the toilet. Sighing, she flushed the bowl, and leaned her forehead against the cool stone.
She knew that feeling well, had known it for what it was twenty years ago with Haley as well.
She knew she was pregnant.
Standing back up, she rushed to her laptop to ease out of her conversation with her daughter. “Honey, I have to go. I think I had some bad yogurt for breakfast.”
“Uh-uh, no way. I know what happened.”
“You do?”
Haley rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, the flushed and ruddy-looking cheeks. The ralphing at eleven A.M. and now the guilty look on your face. Wow, Mom, I didn’t even think… I mean I know you two had to be doing the horizontal Mambo like crazy, but you gave me the talk when I was twelve. I just… wow!”
Brenda blushed, embarrassed, and then stared down at the wood of her desk as if it were the most interesting thing on earth. “It’s complicated.”
“Already? I mean, you’re also old.”
“I’m in my early forties! That happens sometimes.”
&nbs
p; “But I thought they might be freeze dried by now or something.”
Brenda shook her head. “Good Lord, child, what did they teach you in Sex Ed?”
“Not a lot, but I can put a condom on a banana faster than any girl at Lincoln High.”
“I’m so proud.”
“You should be!” Haley beamed. “I’m serious. Is this moving too fast? Mom, I know he seems like a very good man, but this is so fast, so whirlwind.”
The nausea swirled through her again, and she tried to keep herself from yakking right there. “Honey, there’s a lot we have to talk about and I don’t even know if I am yet. I’ll have to get some doctor’s tests later today and, I promise. Whatever we find out, we’ll have a long talk about it. Jamsheed will fly you out here. It’s not something—if I am, I mean—to tell you over the computer or the phone.”
“Okay,” Haley said, her tone subdued, as she nodded back. “But keep me looped. I wanna know if I’m going to be a big sister.” With that, she clicked off the Skype window, leaving Brenda to blink back at the white screen.
Sighing, she ran her hand through her hair and tried to ignore the sweating of her palms. “I want to know for sure, too.”
***
Jamsheed rubbed at the bridge of his nose. The figures before him weren’t daunting, but they were tougher than he’d thought. A group of extremist rebels to the southern border of Zomelia had been pressuring his father with demands. Hell, it was completely likely that one of the factors leading to the older man’s stroke had been the constant pressure from these upstarts. It had long been Rahal Family policy to never negotiate, either with rebels or terrorists. There was no brooking to what they demanded, and certainly no way he’d give up one of the oil fields on their border to them, no matter what they threatened. Yet the thought of gearing up for a possible skirmish made his stomach turn. Being firm and drawing a line in the sand might work for now, but he’d have to come to grips with fact that, acting as the current Head of State, he soon might have to make even more dire decisions.
