Rafeez thought for a bit, and then he sighed and looked down at Pen.
“We need to test the children,” he said softly.
“What do you mean? Like a math test? Rafeez, they’re children.”
“A DNA test. Find out who their real parents are. That must be why Charlotte is so interested in them. Or else why would she want these children and these alone? She does not even know them. We will obtain DNA samples, and then I will have my security people analyze the results.”
“Take samples? Excuse me? You’re not doing anything of the sort to my children!”
The Sheikh looked into her eyes with all the seriousness he could find. “We will need just a swab of saliva. They are children, Pen. They are probably slobbering all over the place anyway!”
Pen raised an eyebrow and put her hands on her naked hips. “OK, these are my kids we’re talking about, not some drooling animals! Can you show some respect, please?”
Rafeez took a breath and raised both hands in defeat. “Ya Allah, I am sorry if I compared your well-mannered children to slobbering beasts. It was not my intention.”
“You’re the slobbering beast,” Pen muttered under her breath, turning away as the Sheikh caught a glimpse of the smile breaking on her pretty round face.
“What was that?” he said, raising an eyebrow and folding his arms over his broad chest.
“Oh, nothing,” said Pen, swinging her hips as she walked across the room and reached for her clothes.
“Put those down,” the Sheikh ordered.
“Excuse me?”
“Those clothes. Put those down, please. We are not finished here.”
Pen blinked as she looked up from the twisted bra she was trying to un-twist so she could cover her boobs. “Um . . . er . . .” she stammered, still holding up the bra as the Sheikh felt his cock rise to full mast so suddenly he felt dizzy again—but this time for a different reason. A purely physical reason.
“Um and er are not words. Who is the inarticulate animal now?” whispered the Sheikh, slowly walking towards her as he saw the arousal express itself in her face, the way her mouth hung open, the way her eyelids fluttered, the way her nipples hardened on their own as he approached.
“I thought . . .” Pen started to say, her words getting swallowed up in a moan as Rafeez walked up to her and simply lowered his head and began to suck her nipples like it was the most natural thing to do under the circumstances. “Oh, God, what are you doing?” she moaned. “I thought . . .”
“There is nothing else to do but wait for your children to finish school, yes?” said the Sheikh, pulling back from her right nipple after slobbering all over it like the beast he was. He pinched her glistening red nib, leaned in and smacked her on the lips, and then proceeded to suck hard on her left nipple under he felt it harden like an arrowhead beneath the circular strokes of his tongue.
“I guess . . .” Pen said, burying her fingers in his hair as he reached around and clawed at her ass while his arousal continued to spiral upwards. “Not that we’re gonna do anything even when the kids are done with school. Not before talking about it, at least.”
“What is there to talk about?” the Sheikh grunted, lifting his head up from between her breasts. His hands were firmly cupping her rear globes, and he straightened to full height and pushed her back towards that dining table, which was still wet from the way Pen had dripped all over it. “Those children are the key to this. There is something about them that figures into Charlotte’s plans, whatever they are.”
“Charlotte . . .” Pen muttered, gasping as the Sheikh hoisted her back up on the table. “So you’re on a first name basis with Doctor Charlotte Goodwin? Interesting.”
“Are you jealous?” said Rafeez, grinning as he straightened up and glanced down at his cock. “She never got me this hard, you know.”
“Ohmygod, so you fucked her!” Pen said, her eyes flicking wide open, her hands grabbing her breasts and covering them up.
“What difference does it make to you?” the Sheikh said, grinning wider as she tried to clamp her thighs together but couldn’t because he’d grabbed them and forced her legs apart until she was spread wide in front of him, her scent rising up to his nostrils and driving him wild with need, insane with desire, hot with . . . love? “You refused to marry me anyway. I am just a toy for you. Just a fling. An Arabian ape with the cock of a gorilla. Nothing but a tool for your pleasure and amusement.”
“I didn’t refuse to marry you!” Pen said. “It was a non-starter because I suddenly got two kids out of the blue! I had to walk away, and you had to let me walk away!”
“Well, now I am back,” said the Sheikh, slowly climbing on the table, pushing his hips between her legs to force her thighs to stay apart. He grabbed her hands and pulled them away from her breasts, his need escalating to the point where he lost vision for a moment from the sublime sight of her beautiful breasts hanging off to either side, big red nipples pointing outwards in perfect symmetry.
“You’re not really back,” Pen said, blinking as she finally stopped struggling and let him hold her down. “Because nothing’s changed. I’m not giving up those kids. They’re Willow’s legacy, and I have to follow through on that. On this.”
“They are also my legacy,” whispered the Sheikh, leaning in and kissing her lips, slowly moving his face down along her neck.
“What does that mean?”
“I do not know for certain. But it is the only thing that makes sense. Charlotte gets in touch with me after fifteen years of zero contact. At the same time she is secretly trying to adopt the twins.”
“How is that the only thing that makes sense? It makes no sense at all. It’s pure coincidence.”
“Nothing with Charlotte is a coincidence, Pen.”
Pen moved her head away from his kiss and pushed against his chest. “OK, stop. What aren’t you telling me?”
The Sheikh closed his eyes and took a breath. Then he nodded and looked down at her. “I had an older sister,” Rafeez said softly. “She was . . . she was a lost child. I barely knew her. She was found dead from a cocaine overdose. My parents never spoke of her. They pretended like she’d never existed.” He paused. “There was a period of time when she left home, was missing, ran away . . . no one knows. I remember because it was a time of great turmoil at the Palace. Then they found her and it seemed like she was on the road to recovery.” He shook his head. “A few weeks later they found her in the Eastern Wing of the Royal Palace at sunrise, white powder all over her face, her lips already blue and cold.”
Pen stared up at him, her brown eyes wide with shock as she listened. The Sheikh could tell that every ounce of her attention was focused on him, and he felt tears welling up behind his hard, green eyes. Tears that had never flowed before—not for this, at least.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered, reaching up and touching his face. She leaned up and kissed his lips, staying silent for another moment before taking a breath. “So you think that maybe she had kids? These kids? My kids? But that’s . . . that’s still way too far-fetched to make sense, Rafeez! How . . .”
“Those missing years,” Rafeez said slowly, blinking as his jaw tightened. “Pen, when my father’s investigators finally found my sister, she was in Bogota. Colombia, Pen. How is that for coincidence?”
22
Coincidence or conspiracy, thought Pen as she stared up into the Sheikh’s green eyes. Suddenly she felt like she didn’t know this man anymore, like she’d never known this man.
And I don’t know him, do I, she thought as fear welled in her throat, making her body seize up as she felt him holding her down with his weight. He showed up on my doorstep in the middle of a goddamn snowstorm. He said Willow sent him to me. But how do I know that for sure? Willow was dead before I ever spoke to her again! Maybe he and Charlotte had been planning this all along! Maybe they’d trace
d his dead sister’s kids, realized they’d been adopted by a couple living in North Dakota, and then tried to re-adopt them from Randy and Willow. Maybe they’d tried legal tricks, bribery, even threats, but Willow said no and so they’d killed her in a fake accident. Then perhaps Randy said no too—after all, who knew if any of those emails Charlotte had shown Pen were real—and so they’d killed her in her freakin’ bathtub! Didn’t that make about as much sense as two people dying in freak accidents within a few months of each other and then a mysterious Sheikh showing up saying his dead sister’s kids just might be these twins?!
Oh, God, he’s gonna kill me and take my kids, Pen thought as she let the fear overtake her, let it push away the last strands of common sense and logic, dismiss the thought that Willow was her best friend and surely she’d have mentioned something if a Middle Eastern Sheikh and a smooth-talking University professor were trying to buy her damned kids from her. Or steal her kids. Or sue her for custody or something.
But it’s also possible they never told Willow anything, Pen thought as the Sheikh kissed her gently even as he held her wrists. Maybe they’d profiled Willow as being the stubborn little bitch she was, baby-crazy and in love with her twins. Maybe they’d just quietly gotten her out of the way so they could focus on Randy, and when they couldn’t get Randy to give them up, it was on to the next turkey! Penelope Peterson, the farmer who thought she was about to marry a Sheikh!
But if he wanted those kids, why wouldn’t he have just married me when the kids became mine? It would have been so simple, right? Is that what he’s trying now? To marry me, get my kids, and then get rid of me? Or maybe . . .
No, Pen thought firmly as she blinked and searched Rafeez’s handsome brown face for some sign to reassure her that he wasn’t a psycho. No, she thought again.
“You want to kill them, don’t you?” she whispered softly, the dread making it hard for her to speak.
“What?” said the Sheikh, cocking his head and frowning. “What did you just ask me?”
“Your sister’s kids. You want them dead. It’s part of this crazy determination not to leave behind any descendants so no one will ever be able to claim Zahaar’s throne after you start to transition the kingdom to democracy. All this . . . all of this is just some twisted, fucked-up, insane plan to adopt your sister’s kids and then quietly get rid of them!”
Rafeez stared down at her for several long moments, his green eyes wide as if he was trying to process what the hell she was talking about. Then he blinked as if he’d pieced together her theory, finally smiling in a way that seemed far too cool for Pen’s comfort.
“Let me make sure I am understanding this correctly,” he said slowly, still holding her wrists down, his smile widening to a grin that almost angered Pen because it smacked of condescension, perhaps even pity—like he thought she’d lost her mind or perhaps was some crazy chick who’s just gotten her period. To hell with this ape, she thought obstinately as she was forced to listen.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Make sure you are understanding this correctly. You speak English, don’t you? You went to Oxford University, didn’t you? With Charlotte Goodwin? You played doctor with her back then, didn’t ya? And now you want to play God! With my kids! Fuck you, you madman! Let me up!”
The Sheikh snorted with incredulous laughter, and for a moment Pen had to admit he looked genuinely shocked, perhaps even shaken. But then that lazy confidence of a king in control was back, and he just shook his head and stayed on her, pinning her down with his weight and strength.
“So you believe that I killed your friend and her spouse in some convoluted plan to get to my dead sister’s children so I could kill them too? If I could engineer two separate fake accidents, why would I not simply have the twins killed in an accident too? Why not just one nice big fake car accident that took care of all of them?”
Pen blinked up at the Sheikh. What he said did make sense, but that didn’t mean she was wrong. “Insane, power-mad villains don’t always use logic,” she said. “Have you ever watched a James Bond movie where the bad guy invents some elaborate machine to kill Bond instead of just putting a bullet in his head and ending it?”
The Sheikh snorted again, leaning in so close she could almost taste him. Or perhaps she could still taste him from the way he’d kissed her earlier. Or was that herself she was tasting from where his lips had been?
“So this is a spy thriller, is it?” he said softly, tightening his grip on her wrists and moving even closer to her mouth. “I thought it was a romance story.”
“Romance stories have happy endings,” Pen said, shaking her head as she felt the arousal start to wind its way up along her naked thighs. The Sheikh was hardening against her soft, wet mound, his cock lining up along her slit as it filled out. “And there’s no way this story ends well.”
The Sheikh grunted, kissing her neck and making her shudder. “Well, perhaps we are not at the end yet, my curvy heroine.”
Pen closed her eyes and arched her back, the little voice that whispered she was crazy getting softer as her arousal grew stronger. “Well, we’d better get a move on towards the climax, don’t you think?”
Rafeez laughed as he kissed her full on the lips, and as Pen kissed him back she decided that she was as crazy as he was, that she was kissing a man who very well might have had two people murdered, a man who could easily have her killed without a trace—a man who was strong enough to kill her himself without breaking a sweat!
Suddenly the Sheikh pulled back from the kiss and flipped Pen over on the table. The breath was squeezed out of her lungs as she felt his weight press down on her back, squishing her boobs up into her chest. Then he was kissing her neck and shoulders furiously, rubbing her arms and back, running his hands all over her body from behind as he ripped off the last strands of her clothing until she was buck naked, spread face-down before him.
“Yes,” he muttered from behind her, and Pen gasped when she heard how his words were almost unintelligible because his voice was so thick with arousal. “The climax. Now it occurs to me that I have not yet come inside you. I am no expert, but don’t most romance novels begin with the hero putting his heroic seed into the hapless woman, after which drama ensues until they accept their destiny?”
“Well,” groaned Pen as she arched her back and raised her ass, reveling in the way the Sheikh was massaging her curves from behind, “there’s all kinds of romance plots.”
“So which one is this? The Sheikh Romance?” whispered the Sheikh as he kissed the small of her back, sending tingles down her heavy thighs as she felt his warm lips move close to the ridge above her rear crack. “The one that fetishizes virile Arabian men and their savage ways? The one where the heroine thinks she has fallen in love with a beast who cares not for anything other than his pleasure.” He paused, slowly spreading her rear cheeks and making Pen wet as she realized he was staring directly at her rear pucker. “His pleasure . . .” whispered the Sheikh, his breath feeling warm against her most private, untouched space. “Which he takes when he wants, how he wants . . . and where he wants.”
And before she realized what was happening Rafeez had pushed his face down between her rear globes, and when she felt his tongue circle her dark hole and then slide inside in the most filthy, dominant way, Pen knew what was coming. She also knew she couldn’t stop it if she tried.
The Sheikh licked her for several long, silent moments. Then he drew his tongue back out of her rear and grabbed her hips, forcing her to raise her ass. He smacked her hard on each buttcheek until she felt the sting ripple through her, and Pen knew that she wasn’t gonna try to stop him. She was going to take his climax wherever he wanted to give it to her.
23
“You know this is only reinforcing the stereotypes about Arabian heroes in Sheikh Romances,” she said, turning her head halfway and glancing back at Rafeez as he pulled back from licking her rear and stared at
her glistening dark ring.
“If I am a stereotype, then so are you, my dear,” the Sheikh replied, his jaw tightening as he looked at her pretty face half-turned towards him, her brown eyes misty with arousal. He loved her, he decided in that moment. It was a simple thought, clear and precise. He loved her, and she loved him. There was no other explanation. After all, she’d just accused him of murder, conspiracy, a plot to kidnap children, and of being a goddamn James Bond supervillain. And yet she was spread before him, arching her back and raising her rump while he licked her clean, tight little asshole until it shone like a beacon.
“Oh, really?” she said, gasping as he smacked her ass again. “What stereotype is that?”
“The conservative, innocent Western woman who does not understand why this animal from Arabia is awakening such lust in her curvy body,” he replied, smacking her ass once more and feeling his cock getting even harder as he watched her magnificent rear globes shudder and turn bright red from the spanking. “The mild mannered housewife who loses control in the heat of passion and finds herself spread naked and wide on her own dining table while her children are at school. The virginal farmgirl who has no idea what to do with all the wet holes in her blossoming body.”
Pen snorted with laughter, half-turning again as the Sheikh rubbed her ass, pulling her globes apart and then letting go so they shuddered as her crack closed up again. “First of all, that’s like three different stereotypes. Secondly, there you go using the word virginal in a sentence. And thirdly . . . thirdly . . . oh, God, Rafeez, what are you doing?”
The Sheikh had driven his long, thick middle finger into her asshole as Pen spoke, and now he curled two fingers of his other hand up inside her cunt from below. “Showing you what these wet holes of yours are for, my lady,” he whispered as he slowly began to move all fingers at once.
She came almost instantly, her body seizing up as her wetness poured down his hand. The groan she emitted was so primal, so surreal, so beautiful that the Sheikh almost exploded without his cock being touched. It felt so good, so right, so bloody perfect that he almost shouted out loud in joy.
Grateful for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 16) Page 11
