What had he said to her, again and again? “Ask the right questions.” “The body does not lie.” He wanted to tell her something, didn’t he? Or did he want her to figure it out for herself?
She frowned when she thought back to that lineup of women, those playful riddles of his, the way he’d been impressed at how Kathryn had read between the lines, seen the meaning behind the meaning, the pattern behind the madness, the hidden order within the external chaos.
And then she decided she wasn’t going to ask any more questions. She was going to watch, and she was going to listen. She was going to read between the lines, see what he wanted her to see, what he wanted to show her.
Suddenly she felt a tremendous relief, and she felt a smile break on her face. Something about her decision had calmed her down, made it unimportant that they were surrounded by chaos, that she had no idea whom to trust.
Because she knew what to trust.
This. The two of them. That urgency with which they made love. That desperation they felt when their bodies touched. For two people whose lives were defined by secrets and lies, deception and conspiracy, this was so pure, so clear, so unambiguously real, that when they were together it felt like nothing else mattered.
Kathryn almost burst into tears as she felt a wave of the most overwhelming joy wash through her, and she smiled and looked into his eyes, leaned over and kissed his lips. She shuddered when she felt his body tighten as she slowly pulled on his shaft. She gasped when she felt his strong right hand pull up her robe and slide between her bottoms and thighs from behind as they kissed.
“I love you,” she muttered as she tasted him enter her mouth, his clean tongue swirling against hers as his right hand massaged her buttocks and thighs, his left hand caressing her thick brown hair. “I know it’s not true. I know I can’t actually love you. But I love you.”
“I love you too, Kathryn Krane,” he whispered, breaking from the kiss long enough to say the words, then crushing their lips together again, sending sparks through her shaking body. “I know I am lying. I am just saying the words. But I love you too.”
Kathryn giggled, drawing back and touching his face as she looked into his eyes. She thought back to that photograph she’d seen of him, standing alone on an ornate balcony, gazing into the distance, a lonely king with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Who was he? And who was she when she was with him?
“Well, so long as we both know we’re lying,” she whispered, the words coming out with her warm breath as she felt his strong fingers spread her from behind and begin to tease her wet slit as she slowly jerked his cock through that tunic.
“Of course we are lying,” the Sheikh groaned as Kathryn jerked him harder and then released her grip so she could pull his tunic up over his erection.
“Of course,” she gasped when she glanced down at his pillar of a cock, long and hard, ramrod straight, its thick brown shaft glistening as his own pre-cum coated it all the way down to the base, the head full and massive, gleaming like a beacon in the light of the nomad tent. “Of course we’re lying.”
Then without another word she moved down along his body and squatted on her knees, lowering her head and gently licking him along his shaft. She felt the Sheikh’s entire body seize up with desperate arousal as his cock flexed, and she smiled as she licked him again, long strokes of her tongue from base to tip and back again, down along his massive balls, coating him with her saliva until he shone in the darkness.
It doesn’t matter what we say, does it, she thought as she breathed deep of his clean, earthy musk, licked her lips and ran her tongue along his shaft and balls once more. No, it doesn’t matter what words we use, what lies we tell each other or ourselves. Because this isn’t a lie. This can’t be a lie. We will always find each other’s truth here, in the darkness, where words mean nothing and touch means everything.
“Ya Allah,” he groaned, his right hand slowly rubbing her shoulders and then sliding into her hair from behind, his grip tightening on her roots and pushing her towards his pulsating cockhead. “Suck me. Bloody hell, you tease. Suck me!”
Kathryn smiled as she drew back and looked down on his cock. “I’m not your whore,” she whispered playfully, licking her lips and tasting him on her tongue. “I’m not your damned whore.”
Then her smile faded, and she lowered her head and took him into her mouth, opening as wide as she could to handle his girth. She paused for a moment, blinking when she realized he was so big, so thick, so goddamn hard she wasn’t sure if she could take it. His hand was on her head, pushing her down onto his erection as he groaned and moved his hips up. Kathryn gagged as the head of his cock struck the back of her throat, and she pulled away and gasped, a long trail of her saliva pouring down past her lips.
“I’m not your whore,” she said again, panting to regain her breath as she glanced at his cock, which was throbbing back and forth like a mighty mast of a ship in a storm.
“Ya Allah,” he groaned, tightening his grip on her hair and pulling her down towards his cock again. “What do I have to do to get you to finish what you have started, you witch?! By God, this is worse than any torture I have endured! Please, Kathryn. Take me into your mouth. Suck me hard and deep. I need to come. I need it. Finish me and my kingdom is yours if you want it!”
Kathryn giggled as she finally allowed him to pull her head closer to his cock. But before she took him back into her warm mouth, she glanced up at him and whispered: “You’ll give me your kingdom?”
“Yes,” he groaned, angling his hips up as he desperately tried to push his cock into her mouth. “Yes. It is yours. Just suck me. Take me into your mouth. I want to feel your lips on my shaft. Suck me, and my kingdom is yours. I swear it.”
“No deal,” she whispered, still glancing up at him as she licked his cock with those long, loving strokes again, making him stiffen to the point where she could tell he was about to come all over both of them. “Because, like I said, I’m not your whore.”
And then finally she relaxed and let him push her down onto his cock, opening wide and taking him all the way in, all the damned way.
20
Everything went dark for the Sheikh when he felt her warm lips close around his hardness. She was so hot inside, so soft inside, so perfect inside. He groaned out loud as he felt her roll her tongue across the head of his cock, and he arched his back and tightened his neck when she opened her throat and let him slide all the way in.
The Sheikh could feel her lips against the base of his cock, and he growled in approval when he realized she’d taken all of him, every damned inch. He swore he’d never been this aroused by a woman, never been this hard, never felt this desperation, this yearning, this need to possess like he did with her.
He gripped her hair and pumped into her mouth, roaring in pleasure when he felt her begin to suck. She was massaging his balls with one hand as she sucked, her other hand deftly stroking his wet shaft as she moved up and down over him. Soon she was in a hot rhythm, and the Sheikh gripped her head with both hands and began to fuck her mouth with all his power, driving his hips upwards as she gagged but held on.
“I am not your whore,” she’d said to him with that playful look in her brown eyes. “I am not your damned whore.”
Ya Allah, he thought as his world spun around and around in a maze of ecstasy. He could feel the beads of sweat running down his temples as his heart pounded in his mighty chest, pushing more hot blood into his swollen cock as Kathryn stroked and sucked, bringing him closer to what felt like an erotic explosion that might very well kill him. Ya Allah, has she guessed it? Guessed why I play this game with these women every year? Guessed that I am looking for a woman who will submit but never yield, who will bend but never break, who will match me word for word and blow for blow, read between the lines and see through the façade? A woman who will understand me, understand the game, understand what a life with me wou
ld mean?
Because that is the only woman who will be able to understand the truth, understand the lies, understand the madness. The madness of what’s happening here, of this game that started almost twenty years ago, a game made up by children, two children, a brother and sister who had no one but each other.
21
MANY YEARS EARLIER
THE ROYAL PALACE OF SEHAAR
“Brother Hyder?”
“Yes, Nishaani. What is it?”
“Why does my mother hate me?”
The young Sheikh looked up from the book he’d been studying and instead studied the serious expression on his baby sister’s light brown face. Her mother had just left after a three-day visit, during which she’d met her daughter exactly three times. Thirty minutes each day, during which time they’d sit face to face in the private atrium near the Eastern Wing of the Royal Palace and play checkers. Nishaani had learned to play checkers by the time she was four, and now, at the ripe old age of six, she was good enough to beat her mother once in a while.
“Your mother does not hate you. She cannot hate you. She is your mother, and all mothers love their children. It cannot be otherwise,” said the Sheikh, trying to sound experienced and wise even though he wasn’t old enough to shave. He was old enough to be king and supreme ruler, though, and he figured he had the authority to make declarations about human nature. Who else would do it? Their father had died of a heart-attack a year earlier, and Hyder’s own mother had succumbed to cancer when Hyder was just eight. He was in charge.
“If she loves me, then why does she not live here with me? Mothers are supposed to take care of their children. I know it. That is what mothers in stories do.”
Hyder smiled at his little sister. “Do you not feel taken care of? Do I not take care of you? Do you not have anything and everything you could want in our palace, in your palace?”
Nishaani frowned and hunched her shoulders, pulling her flowing robes—all green and purple and wild—around her and staring at the hand-woven Persian rug that bore some signs of what two kids without much supervision might do to a rug. “I asked her why she does not come and live with me. With us.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said she has important work to do in America,” said Nishaani. “And so I said perhaps I can come to America with you and help in your important work, yes?”
Hyder nodded, his green eyes shining in admiration at the earnest wit of his younger half-sister. “And what did she say to that?” he asked quietly, finally putting his book away and giving Nishaani his full attention.
“First she laughed. Then she said though I may not understand it yet, I am already helping her work by living here in Sehaar, being a good sister to the Sheikh and supreme ruler,” Nishaani answered with a seriousness that made her seem older than six.
Hyder felt a chill come over him. He was still a child himself, but he’d been well educated on lineage and ascension, history and politics, kings and queens, rebels and usurpers. His advisors were already pushing him to select his first bride, building an alliance with another Sheikdom through marriage. Then a child would follow, and his line would be secure. Those same advisors had been openly disapproving of Nishaani’s illegitimacy, and though they’d lost the battle with Hyder’s father—who’d insisted that Nishaani was his daughter and would live as a princess in Sehaar—they were terrified that she might one day have a claim to the throne should anything happen to the young Hyder before he fathered an heir.
Hyder had listened to those advisors with patience, and he’d always responded with politeness and respect, telling them he’d choose a bride and father an heir when he felt like it and not a day earlier. As for his sister, he’d told them with the same politeness even though his young eyes shone green with suppressed anger, she was a Princess of Sehaar, and there was to be no talk of illegitimacy.
“If I die tomorrow,” he’d told his advisors, the young Sheikh standing as tall as he could, “then it would only be right for Nishaani to be Sheikha. She is strong in spirit, pure of heart, smart as a whip, and even at age six will defeat any of you in checkers.”
But though he loved little Nishaani with all he had and trusted her as much as he trusted that the sun would rise in the morning, his feelings for Nishaani’s cold and distant mother hung like a dark cloud over him. He’d always been suspicious of Mel, and had never understood why she even bothered to visit when she clearly felt no love for her daughter—or at least didn’t show it in any external way. And now, hearing what Mel had said about Nishaani being helpful in her “important work,” that dark cloud felt like it was suffocating him.
Hyder knew that his father had met Mel at a conference in Dubai the year before Nishaani had been born. The topic was “The Future of Energy,” and Mel was an advisor to one of the American oil and gas companies. It made sense that she might find it useful for her daughter to be part of the Royal Family of a kingdom blessed with the purest oil ever pumped from the depths of Mother Earth. But it wasn’t just about money. Something else about Mel didn’t sit right with the young Sheikh. It never had.
So when his father died and Hyder took over the throne, he asked his intelligence people what they knew about her, and they’d confirmed what his father had always told him: That she was an advisor to American and British energy companies. She had a PhD and excellent credentials, a whistle-clean record, and high cheekbones that she’d passed on to her daughter. They also mentioned that DNA testing had confirmed that Nishaani was indeed the dead Sheikh’s child.
“So she travels all over the Middle East and Europe as an advisor to various western energy companies. Is that not the perfect cover for an American spy? Is it not true that American CIA often recruits men and women in legitimate professions to secretly join the agency while maintaining their covers?”
Sehaar’s intelligence officers had looked at one another and laughed at first, but when they saw the way the young Sheikh’s eyes blazed, the way his smooth jaw was set tight, they bowed their heads and assured him that it was not the case, that if she was CIA they would know.
Hyder had forgotten about that conversation, but now, listening to Nishaani, it all came back to him and he knew his instincts were right. Even though Mel’s story was consistent—after all, being an advisor to energy companies was important work, and certainly having a daughter being part of the royal family of an oil-rich nation might be useful in her career—Hyder was sure it was a lie, a cover, a façade. She was CIA, and although he couldn’t be sure, he decided right then and there that he would operate under the assumption that she was. It was the paranoid thing to do. It was the cautious thing to do. It was the safe thing to do.
And once he’d made that decision, the suspicion and paranoia escalated. His father had died of a heart attack, but could he have been murdered? Was that initial meeting between his father and Mel a spontaneous tryst or something planned to perfection? Were Mel and the CIA planting the perfect sleeper agent in little Nishaani? Once that door to paranoia was opened, the young Sheikh realized that anything was possible! Everything was possible!
He looked into Nishaani’s innocent, golden eyes and smiled. If Nishaani was destined to be a spy, a secret agent, then perhaps she could be a double-agent, yes?
“Did your mother tell you why her work is so important?” he asked, nodding when Nishaani shook her head and continued to play with her green and purple robes. “All right. Next time she visits, will you ask her?”
Nishaani nodded, and six months later, after another three-day visit from Mel, Nishaani excitedly came to her big brother with the news:
“She said she is saving the world! And she said someday I will help her save the world!”
Hyder smiled. “Save the world from what?”
“Bad people. Evil people,” Nishaani replied.
“That is indeed important work. So important that you can
not wait for someday. You can start preparing to save the world now! With me! The two of us, Nishaani. Just like it has always been!”
Nishaani’s face lit up at this, and she nodded earnestly. “Yes! I am ready!” Then she frowned. “But how? I’m so small!”
“I am small too, but we will become bigger. We will learn about the world. Learn about why evil people want to do bad things to good people, why there are bombs exploding in marketplaces, why men with machine guns shoot women and children, why there are wars, famines, and misery. We will learn about the world together, and we will save the world together. And then, when your mother is ready for you to help her, you will be prepared! We will both be prepared!”
And so the two of them prepared. They studied and traveled, observed and listened, analyzed and debated, and as the years rolled on, the two of them indeed got bigger, just like Hyder promised: Taller, stronger, with bigger ideas, bigger dreams, bigger ambitions. They were indeed going to save the world together. All of it.
“The United States, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia,” Nishaani said to Hyder one night during their weekly sessions where they talked world politics and planned out their private strategy. “These are the biggest players on the world stage. The US sets the agenda for the Western world. Russia is all-powerful in Eastern Europe. China is the tiger of the Far East. And Saudi Arabia influences every Arab and Islamic nation, either overtly or covertly.”
“So to influence anything on a large scale, we need to have influence in at least three of these four great nations,” Hyder replied, nodding as he glanced at his sister. At nineteen she was tall and lithe, her olive skin giving her an almost ethereal look, her sand-colored eyes as focused and determined as his own. “Our ultra-pure oil will give us some influence with the Saudis, the Americans, and the Russians, all of whom are entrenched in the economics of oil.”
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