Mistletoe for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 17)

by Annabelle Winters

  Who’s gonna save me, Queenie wondered as she stared at the powerful stream of water blast in through her open third-floor window. I’m going down for this. Maybe prison for arson. Maybe bankruptcy court if they decide it was my fault and the insurance company refuses to pay.

  But then Queenie had smiled, a strangely familiar calm washing over her when she reminded herself that they wouldn’t find shit, that she’d done this before and gotten away with it, that she knew what she was doing. She didn’t know why she did it, why she couldn’t stop burning her way through life. But that was a problem to be solved some other day. For now, she could just bask in the warmth of another burning building.

  She squinted as she tried to catch sight of the flames, but the folks in the crowd were right: You couldn’t see any. Dammit, Queenie thought. She’d hoped to see the building light up like a goddamn Christmas tree! ‘Twas the season, right?

  “Merry Christmas to me,” Queenie whispered as she finally saw the orange tongues of flame lick their way around to the outside of the building. She smiled as the crowd oohed and aahed, the firemen began to move faster, the local TV cameras started to roll. “Merry Christmas to meee!!!”

  6

  “Merry Christmas to me,” grunted the Sheikh as he examined his bleeding nose in the mirror of his private, executive restroom on the top floor of his now-empty office building. The party was over, the guests were gone, and his nose was swollen like Rudolph the damned Reindeer’s.

  He’d thought about sending his security personnel after that janitor, but he’d decided to let her go, let her run. He had enough drama in his life right then. He didn’t need to add to it with some woman he barely knew, who clearly had her own issues.

  Issues, yes, the Sheikh thought as he pushed a cotton swab up his nostril to soak up the blood. But ya Allah, she also has curves. She also has spice. She also has goddamn fire!

  And she makes me feel my own fire igniting, Bawaar thought as he pressed the ice-pack against the bridge of his nose, wondering if Queenie had broken it with her powerful kick. He grinned, immediately wincing in pain as he thought of her open overalls, the way her big nipples hardened when he pinched them, the way her feminine scent rose up to him when he pushed his hands down her panties and—

  “Stop it,” he said aloud, pain and arousal moving through him at the same time. He was hard beneath his trousers, erect in a way that he never remembered being with Renita. A flash of guilt passed across him, but he dismissed it and shook his head. No more guilt. He’d married Renita when he was too young and inexperienced to understand that some people were simply not compatible, simply not meant to be with each other. It was over, and that was for the best.

  But she might be carrying my child, the Sheikh thought as he winced again. This time, however, it was not from physical pain but from the pain of imagining a future where Renita really was carrying the heir or heiress of Wakhrani! It would be a nightmare! He already knew she would never give up custody! After all, she came from a wealthy Jordanian family to begin with, and now after the divorce, her total assets would be well over one billion dollars! Even Renita was not greedy enough to give up custody for mere money. She wanted more. She wanted something else.

  Bawaar stood and began to pace, like he always did when he was lost in thought. He glanced down at his bare feet, shaking his head and muttering as he pictured a timeline in his head. The last time he’d had sex with Renita was several months ago. Routine and unimaginative—in fact, if he remembered correctly, he’d closed his eyes and imagined someone else just to stay hard enough to get his release! That was when he’d known it was over, that this marriage would kill him if he did not get out. What sort of an omen was it if the heir of Wakhrani was conceived from such a lackluster union?

  Again the Sheikh’s mind was drawn to Queenie Quinn, the curvy janitor who’d teased him, toyed with him, and then kicked him in the face and run for the fire exit! Ya Allah, another madwoman in his life! Good riddance, yes?

  Yes, the Sheikh thought. Put her out of your mind. You do not need any more drama. You do not need any more madness. You do not need . . .

  Bawaar blinked as he saw that he was still hard, walking around barefoot and erect, his mind still full of images of a cleaning-lady’s breasts, his senses still aroused by her lingering taste, her feminine scent!

  This is what years of denying your primal needs has done to you, he reasoned. You never cheated on Renita, but perhaps you should have! Perhaps you should have taken whores to bed when you felt dissatisfied with what your wife offered. Perhaps Renita would even have been relieved that you did not subject her to your animalistic needs that were clearly beyond her limits!

  “But here we are,” the Sheikh said out loud, tossing the ice-pack away and blowing his nose into a bloody silk handkerchief. “I am divorced, bleeding, and my balls are firmly in the cold hands of a woman I never want to see again.”

  Ya Allah, would it not be wonderful if Renita simply disappeared, the Sheikh thought. He caught sight of his reflection in the large window of his office as the dark fantasy passed through his mind, and he was startled by his own image: His face swollen and bruised; his cock still pushing against his trousers; blood stains on his white tuxedo shirt. He looked like a monster! Perhaps he was! Who else would even entertain the idea of getting rid of his ex-wife and their unborn child! And why? For that janitor?! Was he insane?! Was he still seriously thinking about Queenie Quinn when he had matters of monumental importance to work through?

  His nose throbbed again as he allowed his thoughts to drift back to Queenie. There was no denying it. He wanted her. Perhaps it was because she’d turned him down, kicked him with a ferocity that he’d never seen in a woman. Perhaps he was just turned around from the drama Renita was throwing at him and he needed a release that was raw and primal, that gave life to his deepest urges, his darkest fantasies, needs that he’d suppressed so long as he’d tried to stay true in an unsatisfying marriage.

  “But I am a king,” he said out loud. “And I am now a single man. I will ignore Renita and focus on my own needs. And those needs come dressed in blue overalls and black utility boots, armed with a broom and dustpan, blessed with curves that remind me what it means to be a man.”

  The only question, the Sheikh thought as he felt Renita, the party, and everything else fade into the background while he allowed his mind to go where it wished, is whether she will show up to work again.

  7

  Do I even bother showing up at work again, Queenie thought as she stepped into the shower and stood there naked, shivering even though it was seventy degrees in her studio apartment and a balmy seventy-two outside. She wasn’t sure if she felt guilty or violated, scared or angry, excited from running down the stairs and driving her beat-up Ford Escort at twenty-miles over the speed limit or still aroused from the way the Sheikh had touched her body, the way he’d prepared to take her . . . a way she knew she’d never been taken before.

  “Tomorrow’s Christmas Day, and it’s a holiday,” Queenie reasoned out loud as she let the warm water blast against her naked curves. “So I’ve got a day to decide.”

  And so does he, she thought as she soaped herself, feeling a tingle as she touched her crotch and realized her pubic hair was matted and sticky from how wet she’d gotten, how wet she still was. He’s got a day to think about whether or not he wants to press charges for being kicked in the face!

  Oh, God, what do I do if the cops show up at my door with handcuffs and a warrant?! I can’t afford a lawyer! And some overworked public defender isn’t going to match up with some billionaire’s team of lawyers! What happens if he threatens to sue me unless I . . .

  Queenie couldn’t complete the thought because her mind began to spin, her body began to shake, her lips began to tremble. She couldn’t deny that the thought scared her to some degree. But it also turned her on in a sick, twisted way. Blackmailed into scr
ewing your boss? Sucking his thick cock beneath the table? Bending over and letting him take you any way he wanted, anywhere he wanted?! Oh, shit, now that was something straight from the pages of the books she’d obsessively read as a young teenager up in Juno, the stuff that had kept her young body warm on those cold Alaskan nights.

  Queenie closed her eyes as she thought back to the night her mother had walked into her room and seen thirteen-year-old Queenie with her nightie pulled up over her boobs, her legs spread wide, one hand inside her panties, the other furiously reading through a novel with some bare-chested beast of a man on the cover.

  “My daughter is a whore,” Mama had said at the breakfast table the next morning. “A young harlot in the making. It’s unnatural at such an early age, Queenie. You shouldn’t be having these feelings. And you damned well shouldn’t be touching yourself like that! Have you no shame? Do you even understand how disgusting you are? I don’t know if I can even look at you again after seeing you like that! My own daughter! I wouldn’t even believe it if you hadn’t come out of me!”

  Queenie had cried all the way through breakfast, barely eating for like the first time ever. The look on her mother’s face when she’d opened the door the previous night was burned in little Queenie’s memory, and even now, two decades later, it brought tears to Queenie’s eyes. She knew, of course, that it was perfectly normal for a teenage girl to fantasize about being taken by a man, but the emotional imprint of that incident was too deep to be erased. And when Queenie began dating, discovering to her delight that having big boobs as a fourteen-year-old made her very much in demand despite her fat ass and double-chin, her reaction to being touched seemed to back up her mother’s accusation that Queenie was just a harlot in training.

  And so Queenie decided to accept it. To embrace it. To just shrug and say sure, all right, let’s do it. You wanna suck my boobs beneath the bleachers? Sure! You wanna finger my pussy in the detention room after school? Great! You wanna jerk off all over my ass in the backseat of your mom’s minivan? Have at it! That’s who I am. That’s what Mama said I am.

  She’d taken on all comers through her teenage years, and soon enough everyone was saying exactly what Queenie’s mama had told her when she was thirteen: You want an easy lay? Call Queenie! She’ll do it with ya!

  It had all been fun and games until Queenie began to hear the rumors, what boys and girls and even the teachers were saying about her. And then the School Counselor had called Queenie into her office and spoken to her about things like reputation, safety, hygiene . . . basically saying Queenie was a filthy, dirty, slut. At least that was the way Queenie heard it, and then everything was backing up what Mama had said to her at the breakfast table all those years ago! Mama was right! Queenie was growing up to be a dirty girl, a filthy slut, a wanton whore!

  And so Queenie just shut down. She shut it all down. Don’t touch me. Don’t call me. Don’t fucking talk to me. She’d withdrawn from the world her senior year in high school, crying in relief when the year ended and she didn’t have to face all those kids again, face her own guilt and shame when she saw how the boys she’d fucked and sucked would look at her in class, wink at her when no one was looking, whisper things when no one else was listening. It took her to the brink of despair several times, the edge of wanting to do something drastic, to somehow make up for her sins, to cleanse herself of the filth everyone said was inside her.

  And then she’d discovered fire. The ultimate cleanser. A way to erase the past, present, and future all at once.

  She’d started by burning all her clothes, every top that had ever been unbuttoned by a boy, every skirt and dress that had ever been pushed up, every pair of panties, all her bras. She’d watched them burn in a little pile in the clearing behind her house when Mama wasn’t home, and it had given her a sense of peace, relief, pure calm. It was addictive, and Queenie found herself slowly opening up to life again now that she’d found this private way to cleanse herself.

  Of course, Mama wasn’t happy to learn that Queenie suddenly needed a whole set of new clothes.

  “What happened to all the lovely dresses I bought you last year?” Mama had asked. “And why do you need new underwear? Don’t tell me the old ones don’t fit anymore! Queenie!”

  “Never mind,” Queenie had said. “I’ll buy them myself. I’ll get a job and pay for them myself.”

  And so within a week of graduating high school, Queenie was working full-time at a gas-station on the outskirts of Juno. It was on the bus route, and so she didn’t need a car. It paid well enough, and Queenie liked talking to customers as she rang them up at the register. She even liked going outside in the cold when someone pulled up at the Full Service pump and honked their horn.

  There was one green car that pulled into the Full Service spot every few days, always around the time when the Full Service attendant would go on break and Queenie was in charge of everything. She didn’t notice the driver the first few times—he always went into the station to use the restroom while she filled the tank. He’d swipe his credit card at the pump, adjust his hat and sunglasses, and then drive off without ever tipping her.

  Then one day he started tipping her. A twenty dollar bill the first day. Forty the next. A crisp hundred the week after that.

  “Um, Sir, this is a hundred!” Queenie had said, blinking as she tried to see the man’s eyes through his mirrored sunglasses.

  “I know!” he’d said, finally taking off those glasses and smiling in a way that made Queenie’s heart jump. He was a bit older, but handsome, with clear blue eyes and an easy smile. She’d seen something in his eyes, something that made her want to know more about him. “I won the lottery! Gonna get a new car tomorrow!” He’d paused, rubbing his fresh-shaved chin. “You want this one?”

  Queenie’s eyes had gone wide as she looked at the green Chevy. It was old, but she knew it was in good condition. The engine hummed quietly, and there were no dents or dings she could see. She’d peeked inside several times while pumping gas, and it always looked clean and organized. No fast-food bags or candy wrappers. No stains on the seats. Yeah, it looked clean, just like the man did. Clean and organized. Queenie had never been around “clean and organized”! It was just Mama and Queenie at home, and neither of them were particularly neat or organized.

  “Um, what do you mean?” Queenie asked, blinking as she looked into the man’s blue eyes and then at the car again. The hundred-dollar bill felt cool in her hand, and she closed her fist over it as she looked back at the man. Then she shook her head as she thought about what Mama would say if she came home with a car and a hundred bucks—both given to her by a blue-eyed stranger!

  “I mean it’s yours. Take it. Here,” the man said, leaning in through the open driver’s side window and pulling the keys out. There were a lot of keys on the ring, and the man got the big car key off and handed it to her. “There you go.” He blinked once, as if something had just occurred to him. “Oh, I’ll need your full name and address.”

  “What?” Queenie had said, frowning as a chill came over her. This sounded like the kinda thing kids were warned about, right? Handsome stranger offering you candy . . . or a car!

  “So I can sign the car over to you,” the man said, breaking into a warm smile that put Queenie at ease. “That way, if you do something horrible with the car, they won’t come knocking on my door!”

  Queenie had laughed, touching her hair as the man smiled and took a step closer. He told her about winning the lottery: It wasn’t millions, but it sounded like it was a hell of a lot—especially for Juno. Once again he held that key out, and once again Queenie hesitated. A hundred-dollar bill was one thing, but a car? Seriously?! For free? Nothing was for free! He’d want something in return, right? Sooner or later he’d want what all those boys wanted.

  She’d frowned as she looked back into his eyes. So what, she’d thought. He’s attractive. I don’t see a wedding ring. Yeah, i
t’s weird that he wants to give me stuff, but didn’t a lot of romance novels start off with a rich, socially-awkward man showering a woman with expensive gifts because he wants her—wants all of her, not just her body?

  Maybe this is my love story, Queenie had thought, blinking and then slowly taking the key, shivering as his fingers touched her wrist. Maybe Mama was wrong. Maybe I’m not meant to be a whore but a lady, a sophisticated woman who drives around in a clean car, wears sunglasses and lipstick, goes to fancy restaurants with a blue-eyed man of wealth and stature! Why not? Maybe I’ve burned away my past, and this is my future right here, staring me in the face, touching my hand, giving me a car!

  “Queenie Quinn,” the man said, glancing down as Queenie wrote out her name and address in the small notebook he’d handed her. “How old are you, Queenie?”

  “Nineteen,” Queenie had said, touching her hair again and standing as straight as she could. “How about you?”

  The man had laughed, shaking his head and winking. “Not so old that I don’t remember being nineteen,” he said. “You have a drivers license, Queenie?”

  Queenie shook her head, her face going red when she remembered she’d failed her driving test at sixteen and never retaken it. It hadn’t seemed like a priority at the time, since even Mama didn’t own a car and no way in hell was Queenie gonna be able to afford one anytime soon.

  The man raised an eyebrow. “Wait, do you even know how to drive?” he asked.

  Queenie shrugged, a half-smile emerging as she shook her head and narrowed her brown eyes at him. “How hard can it be?” she said.

  The man broke into laughter, shaking his head and touching her on the arm. “You are priceless! So you were going to take my car and then just . . . figure out how to drive it?!”