And that was what he had told Diamante, right after making it clear he would not be going through with the marriage, that he was promised to another. It was a promise that could not be broken, he had said. A promise written in the stars, he swore.
He had expected that Diamante would appreciate his candor, respect his private, discreet confession. After all, he had a younger brother who could take his place, should the royal families still wish to pursue the alliance-by-marriage. He had thought telling her face-to-face would be better than simply declining the arrangement from afar, which might give rise to misunderstandings at a political level, implying that the alliance itself was being rejected. But it was a mistake: Diamante took it as a personal rejection, a rejection of not the alliance but of her—her beauty, her grace, her womb even.
“And who is the woman more suitable than I to bear your children?” Diamante had asked, her forwardness surprising the prince, something about her tone warning him that he should perhaps not add to his error by speaking the name of the one he loved.
Somehow the prince had navigated his way through that conversation, racing back to his kingdom and telling his father the king of what he had done, what he was going to do.
“It is the only way now,” the prince said to his father. “I will leave, and you must announce that I have been exiled for my insult to Princess Diamante. I know the alliance is crucial for our kingdom, and my selfishness has brought us to—”
“What is done is done,” the king said, his dark eyes steady and unwavering. “A king does not apologize for his actions. You have made your decision, and you are backing up your act of selfishness with an act of sacrifice. That is the way of a king. The king you will be one day.”
“How, Father?” said the Sheikh in his dream. “How can that be when I am to leave in exile? When it is time for a new ruler, it will be my younger brother and Diamante who will ascend, yes? How will I be king?”
8
HER DREAM
“I don’t know how I know,” said Hilda in the musty attic of that dream. “I just know. OK? Oh, God, are you angry? I swear I didn’t mean for it to happen!”
“It’s not your fault,” he said to her, smiling even though she could see the worry on his young face, the concern in those green eyes of his. “I’m the man, and I’m responsible. I’m responsible for you, my wife.”
“Am I really your wife?” she whispered up at him. “Do you really mean that?”
“How many times are you going to ask me that?” he said as his expression softened, though the concern still showed in his eyes. “I already told you. We don’t need anyone else to tell us we’re man and wife. Especially now. Now that . . . oh, God, are you sure?”
“I . . . I think so. I haven’t bled for more’n two months, and I been getting sick sometimes, just like my sisters did when it happened. They stopped bleeding too when it happened, they said.”
“You told your sisters?” The worry rushed back into his voice.
“No, silly! Of course not! They used to talk about it, that’s all. I just remember.”
“You’re smart that way,” he said, his smooth brown forehead crinkling up as he looked down at her, petting her dark hair gently, undoing a beast of a knot in her tresses as she smiled and blushed at the compliment. “We’re gonna need your smarts when we set out on our own.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, even as the terrible truth dawned on her. It was one thing to be married in secret, without anyone knowing. But if she was with child now, then there’d be no hiding it soon. And then what? What would Pa say? What would Pa do?!
“I mean, once your Pa finds out, he ain’t gonna let . . . he ain’t gonna let . . .” He sighed and smiled, rolling off her and lying next to her on that hard mattress in the attic. Now he turned and held her hand, raising her arm and pushing up her sleeve. He paused for a moment, and then he kissed her smooth white forearm and pulled back his own sleeve.
“What do you see?” he asked, placing his bare arm next to hers. “Tell me what you see.”
“I dunno,” she said, frowning as she looked at the smooth brown skin of his arm pressed up against the creamy white of hers. In a moment she understood, and she glanced into his eyes, her hand reaching for his face, her fingers caressing his dark cheek as he smiled at her in the night.
“You see, don’t you? You see what your Pa will see. You see what the town will see. What they already see when they look at me.”
She blinked away the tears welling up in her brown eyes. “But that don’t mean nothing! I know what they say around town, but it’s not true. Your ma and pa are white as anyone else in town! Whiter’n my parents even, I bet!”
He took a deep breath, slowly exhaling as he brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers, one by one. “They ain’t my real parents. They didn’t tell nobody ‘cause they know how it is in these parts. They just tell everyone my grandpa had black hair and dark skin. And all us boys are browned from the sun anyway. My folks said let people talk. So long as nobody knows for sure, we’re all right. People talked, but nobody cared enough to start any trouble. But now . . . ? Not now. Not with this.”
She swallowed hard as she tried not to cry. The tears rolled down her smooth round cheeks, but her voice was firm as she spoke. “It don’t matter. Once I tell Pa we’re married, it’ll be OK. He ain’t gonna shoot you!” She said it with a forced smile.
He snorted and shook his head, his expression hardening, his young face once again looking older, like he was a man and not a boy—not anymore at least. “I ain’t worried about that so much as I’m worried about you!”
She snorted. “Me? What’s gonna happen to me?”
He took a breath as his gaze moved slowly down along her body, and he gently reached out and placed his right hand on the small round of her belly. “They ain’t gonna let this happen. They just ain’t. There’s folks in town who got ways. I heard about it.”
“Oh, God!” she squealed, immediately clamping her hand over her mouth and closing her eyes tight. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “They wouldn’t. Pa wouldn’t let them. Ma wouldn’t let them!”
He exhaled and shook his head. “They ain’t gonna have no choice. Like you said, your pa ain’t gonna shoot me.” He grunted. “He’d for sure wanna shoot me, but he ain’t gonna do it. And he sure as hell ain’t gonna let me marry you for reals. Which means there ain’t no choice for him. They’ll do it quiet, so no one knows. Take the baby outta you before the rest of the town finds out. You in more danger than I am, you see? And you’re my wife. I gotta protect you. I gotta protect our child. That’s what a man does, you hear? A man protects his family. I can’t protect you here, and so we gotta run. You, me, and our baby.”
She closed her eyes and took a breath, holding it in as long as she could. When she opened her eyes and exhaled she could feel something different about her, like something had changed, like she had made a decision that was monumental but somehow so easy. It was almost as if she’d made the decision before, many times before, in different ways, again and again . . .
9
HIS DREAM
“Again . . . tell me again how you’re going to be a king,” she whispered as the carriage bounced its way through that mystical country road in the Sheikh’s dream.
He could barely see straight, his arousal was so strong. She was magnificent, he thought as he caressed her naked hips, reveling in how her thighs shuddered each time the carriage went over a bump. She was perfect, just perfect, he thought as he leaned close to her bare sex, his entire body stiffening as he took in her feminine scent. He kissed her soft inner thighs as she moaned and placed her palms on his head. By God, this woman drove him wild! To the world she was quiet and shy, sophisticated and well-mannered. But with him she was a goddess, a wallflower opening up into full bloom just for him—only for him. Like she had done once before, three years a
go. Did she remember? Did she know it was him?
“Is that the only reason you allow me so close, grant me such access, spread for me thus, my lady,” he whispered as he kissed her secret curls, breathing deep of her musk again as he gently parted her brown triangle with his tongue. “Because I am to be king?”
“Oh, dear,” she muttered as the tip of his tongue touched the mouth of her slit. “Oh, dear!”
“There we go,” he whispered against her, kissing her full on those dark nether lips of hers before sliding his tongue into her glistening slit as she moaned.
Slowly he moved his tongue back and forth, in and out, faster and faster, his warm lips working her labia as his tongue drove deep into her cunt. He could feel her body shudder with each stroke, shiver with each stab, shake with each roll, and he could not hold himself much longer, he knew.
Feverishly he undid his breeches, groaning into her crotch as he released his cock. He was harder than he could possibly believe, his shaft feeling thick like a lamppost as he massaged himself while he brought her close with the fury of his tongue.
“No,” she muttered when she saw what he was doing. “What if I get pregnant?”
“That is the point, my lady,” he grunted as he released his engorged manhood and pushed her down flat against the cushion. “That is the whole damn point!”
“Oh, Lord!” she whispered when she saw his masthead burst into view, dark red and swollen full, glistening, gleaming, terrifyingly thick, supremely erect. “Oh, my dear God!”
10
HER DREAM
“Oh, God!” Hilda screamed through her dream as the Sheikh pushed his manhood deep into her sex, his thick cock forcing open the slender mouth of her slit, widening the walls of her vagina as he drove hard, thrust long, pumped strong.
She gasped for air as she felt him kiss her hard on the mouth, ravishing her face with his warm lips as he took her, those powerful hips driving his cock into her with a force that shook her. She moaned into his mouth as he pulled back halfway and then drove back in, again and again as the horses pulled that carriage through her dream, again and again as she moaned and wailed, again and again as she got closer, closer, until she was there, coming suddenly, coming hard, like a lady and a whore, a saint and a sinner, a lover and a wife, a peasant and a queen.
And as she came she could see the lampshades above her, gypsy lanterns swinging wildly from the motion . . . the motion of the carriage, the motion of their lust, the motion of his thrust, the motion of . . . time.
Suddenly Hilda was in her store in Albuquerque as the Sheikh took her, and she was also in that horse-driven carriage with a man who said he was to be king, somehow still that girl on a hard mattress in a musty attic with a boy who swore he would be king, now riding through the night with a prince who might never be king because of her . . .
Three dreams in one, three lives in one, three women in one . . .
“Oh, God, what’s happening!” Hilda screamed as she sat bolt upright in her bed, back arching as her climax whipped through her, making her scream, making her howl, making her shout and sob, writhe and bob, thrash and flail. That green-eyed cat ran for all nine of his lives as the world shattered and rebuilt itself in that little room, as the earth shook, the universe shuddered, space and time bent over and twirled around, all of history and herstory dancing a cosmic dance with Hilda Hogarth as the dancefloor.
“Oh, God, what the fuck is happening,” she sobbed as that orgasm still roared through her stricken body like he was in the room with her, his green eyes looking deep into hers as he took her, again and again, the Sheikh, the king, the boy, the girl, the dream.
“Oh, God, what’s happening,” she muttered as she finally surrendered and let the climax take her back to that dream, the dream that was in full color, vivid and alive, burning and true, more real than life, perhaps because it was more than life, perhaps because it was all of life.
Oh, God, what’s happening . . .
11
“Ya Allah, what is happening!” he roared, the sound of his own voice waking him, and he was in his hotel room but still in that carriage with her, alone in his room but also in that musty attic with her, naked and in bed but somehow riding free with her. With her!
He almost passed out from the force of his orgasm, the release coming so hard and with such violence that his heavy torso raised up off the bed as the Sheikh exploded into the sheets, his seed pouring into white linen even as he swore he felt his body pressed tight against hers, his release flowing directly to her depths, his heat somehow flooding her valleys, pouring deep into her canals like it always had, like it always would.
He came like it was coming from somewhere else, like it was going to somewhere else, and as the dreams swirled through his crazed mind, his body racked with a fever so raw, the Sheikh clearly saw her face, clearly tasted her lips, clearly knew her name, all her names, the girl, the woman, the queen, three names, three women, three dreams.
Three dreams in one. Three lives in one. Three women in one.
Hilda.
Hilda.
Hilda.
12
TWO MONTHS LATER
“Hilda,” she said to the doctor after following him into his private office adjoining the examination room—which was where she’d been a couple of weeks earlier, when she came in for a checkup, wondering if all that cheap-ass wine had finally done some real damage. “Just Hilda is fine. Certainly not Mrs. Hogarth. I think I’d remember if I had gotten married.”
The doctor turned bright red and blinked hard, rubbing his chin and staying strangely quiet until she took a seat. He went around the desk and sat down as well, nodding again and blinking hard. “My mistake. The nurse must have written it down wrong. So sorry.”
It’s always the nurse’s fault, she thought as she tried to stop herself from giving him an over-the-top eye-roll. Nice to have a ready made scapegoat, yes, Doctor? Well, let’s see if you can give me something or someone to blame for why my body seems to be going nuts over the past couple of months, ever since . . .
No, she thought as she tried to block out the insane thoughts that had been invading her mind ever since she’d missed her period twice and then taken a home pregnancy test that was obviously and positively fake or broken. Or perhaps she was broken, she eventually decided when all the dumb-ass pregnancy tests seemed to say the same thing—the impossible thing, of course. So now she was here, wondering if her thirty-something hormones were getting out of whack from the wine and the junk food and the wine and her weight and the wine and the cat-hair. Cat hair! That must be it! Some messed up cat allergy from the little green-eyed devil!
Of course, “cat allergy” hadn’t showed up as one of the many reasons an otherwise healthy woman would suddenly stop getting her period. Hilda had gone down the list twice: Severe stress? No more than usual. Hard drugs like heroin or crack? Just red wine and caffeine, with a chaser of sugar. Low body-fat? Um, nope.
She didn’t even consider testing for being preggers until the second missed period and the random morning-sickness type stuff that was most certainly something new. Of course, the pregnancy tests were more for entertainment, she had told herself when she bought them from the Walgreen’s across town. (She had been careful not to be seen in the drugstore down the block buying something that pretty much confirmed you were a whore . . . hey, even a gypsy woman cares about the fake-ass morals of society!)
But now she was here, exhausted and at the end of her rope. Two months without her period. Two weeks of consistently lighting up those infuriating pregnancy tests with positive readings that seemed to say, “Yes! You are a whore! A drunken whore at that! If you weren’t, then at least you’d remember sleeping with whichever guy knocked you up!”
Yeah, she blacked out sometimes if she didn’t eat before going through a bottle of Pinot. But usually that resulted in her waking up with
a hangover and a messy kitchen from some awesome-sounding internet recipe that she didn’t remember attempting. Hilda knew that blacking out wasn’t great, but she always felt the appropriate amount of self-hatred after those nights. And she never got that drunk when she was out at a bar or a party. Certainly not on a date! She was a lady! Besides, the last date she’d been on was over seven months ago. And Videogame Grandmaster Wizardski Potbelly (who didn’t look anything like his Tinder pic, btw . . .) didn’t get his dragon even close to her ladylike dungeons.
But clearly I missed something . . . or someone, she thought as she watched the doctor’s thin lips move in slow motion, the words forming one by one in the ether as she felt a sickness rise up in her.
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with you, Mrs.—I mean Miss—Hogarth,” he said. He swallowed hard and blinked again and his face turned that Pepto-Bismol pink once more. “Or perhaps I should say congratulations? Is the pregnancy a surprise?”
And now it came, the sickness that had been building to a head, the awful feeling of being pulled into a nightmare, a world where nothing made sense, where she didn’t make sense!
“Oh, God, this is impossible,” she muttered as she gasped and blinked four-hundred times in rapid succession and then wiped her mouth while the doctor weakly called for his nurse. “Fucking impossible!”
13
“It is impossible, Sheikh Rahaan. It simply cannot be done.”
“Impossible . . . cannot . . . these are words that do not make me happy,” said the Sheikh, putting his sunglasses away and squinting down at the much-shorter, and certainly rounder, foreman overseeing the construction of a new, state-of-the-art oil rig in the Arabian Sea, just beyond the mouth of the Gulf of Oman. Rahaan and Alim’s father had wisely held on to the drilling rights off the small coastline that their ancestors, the founders of the Kingdom of Kolah, had fought to acquire almost a hundred years ago, when land was still being taken by force. The powerful Islamic nation of Saudi Arabia had offered to buy the drilling rights decades ago, and in fact the offer still stood and was valued at tens of billions of dollars now. But Rahaan’s father had refused to sell, and Rahaan somehow felt compelled to uphold his father’s decision.
Stars for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 8) Page 4