Sexy Sheikh Bundle (Harlequin Presents)

by Sharon Kendrick

  ‘No.’

  She wished he wouldn’t stare at her that way, and yet she never wanted him to stop doing it. Pull your self together, Sienna, she told herself. Remember who he is.

  ‘I’m afraid that the staff have gone off on an extended break,’ she said, trying for something light, something to dispel the atmosphere which was fraught and heavy—building into something she didn’t recognise nor even want to acknowledge.

  And maybe that was why she relaxed and didn’t see it coming. But even if she had would she honestly have been able to stop it? Or wanted to stop it?

  Because Hashim suddenly pulled her into his arms without warning and anchored her firmly against the full length of his body. His smile hardened.

  Don’t, she told herself weakly as she felt the musculature and the power. Fight him.

  But she did not fight him. She trembled.

  And Hashim briefly closed his eyes as one arm encircled the slender column of her waist, sighing with soft triumph as he felt the instinctive flowering of her breasts crushed to his chest. What he had desired for so long would soon be his. It was going to be easier than he had even dared anticipate.

  He tilted her chin with the tip of his finger, his black eyes glittering with an inner fire, and she smouldered beneath his scorching gaze. ‘Who cares about the staff?’ he drawled, and his lips began to move towards her as if a magnetic force compelled them to.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Shh.’ His lips grazed hers, touchpaper-sure. ‘There are a thousand things I wish to do and show to you, and we must waste not a second.’

  Time froze. Her heart seemed to thump out a million beats in those few seconds. His face swam before her, shifting in and out of focus, and she drifted her eyes over it greedily, drinking in the hard, flat planes, the thin, jagged line which ran down the side of his cheek and scarred it.

  But most of all it was the mouth which tempted her—the voluptuous cushion of the lower lip contrasting so markedly with the cruel hard line of the upper one. She could see the gleam of his white teeth and the soft pink of his tongue. It was as if all the time in between had never happened, as if nothing existed nor ever had except for what was here and what was now. In this room, in his arms, in the heightened and fragile atmosphere, with the unsteadiness of their breathing and the scent of the flowers.

  ‘Hashim,’ she whispered, but she never knew what it was she intended to say, for his eyes had hardened in tune with his body and he bent his head to blot out the world.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A KISS could be a question and an answer. It could take or give. But Hashim’s kiss robbed Sienna of everything except her own helpless response to it. Somewhere at the back of her mind a thousand voices screamed out their protest, but she silenced them as ruthlessly as if they had been her enemies. Instead, she opened her mouth beneath the hard, seeking warmth of his lips. And was lost.

  Hashim gave a low laugh of delight at the ease with which she pressed her lips so eagerly against his—it grew in the back of his throat and came out like the small groan of a playful lion cub.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured into her mouth, and she murmured back, something muffled and incoherent—the mindless sound women sometimes made when they were ready for sex.

  But Hashim was careful, and although he felt his heart pounding, desire hardening him with its exquisite torturous heat, he knew that this seduction must be a cold-blooded one. One wrong move and she might flee from his arms. One incautious word and all would be lost.

  He knew which buttons to press—for his experience of women was encyclopaedic. He knew when to cajole and when to demand. When to lead and when to follow. But with Sienna it was different. She had stated her resistance to just this act, and while her body might be responding at the moment the mind could be a powerful deterrent. Particularly in a woman’s case.

  It was, he realised, as he drifted his mouth away from her neck and began to kiss softly at the line of her jaw, the very first time in his life that he’d had to actually seduce a woman. Normally he had to fight them off. Vaguely he remembered something he had read when schooling himself in the art of love, as royal males of Qudamah did when they reached the age of fifteen. That when a woman was uncertain, you must take it slowly. Very slowly. You must make her believe that you do not have love in mind until it is too late for her to stop. And women did not so easily reach that place of no return as men did.

  His mouth was featherlight—provoking and enticing—and Sienna’s head fell back. ‘Hashim,’ she breathed, and all her hopes and longings were focused on that one little word.

  He leapt on the spark of assent and sought to fan the fire with sweet words of his own. ‘What is it, sweet Sienna? Sweet, sweet Sienna,’ he whispered. His lips touched the base of her throat, teasing it with the tip of his tongue—an erotic and neglected area, or so he had been told—and her little moan told him that his information had been correct. At the same time he began to stroke his fingers down the curve of her hips, taking great care to avoid the obviously erogenous zones. ‘That pleases you?’

  She felt the pulsing of her blood, felt the words spill from her mouth as if she had no control over them. ‘Oh, yes!’ she gasped. ‘Yes!’

  Unseen, he smiled, now risking the flat of his hand lightly skating over her bottom, and in silent answer to the unspoken progression of his movements he felt her squirm against him. The smile disappeared as he let it skate right back again, to cup the pert globe with possessive fingers. Of course she was responsive! Was he forgetting what kind of woman she was? But he dampened his anger down, for it made him harden even more. And it was not his wish to just rip her panties off and drive into her. He would make her eat her defiant words of the other day in the most delicious way possible.

  And she would beg him to do it to her!

  He teased her and excited her, drifting his fingertips along her thighs, skittering them over the hungry fork of her, but, like a man spoilt for choice at a feast, he deliberately stayed away from her breasts. His mouth hardened. Those he was saving until last.

  ‘Hashim!’ she gasped in wonder, as he tiptoed sensation all over her skin, ignited it where he touched, leading her down a path so unbearably sweet that she could scarcely believe this was happening.

  His mind worked more quickly than his fingers. If he sought out the classic place of seduction—a bed—then it might allow time for reality to snap into focus and break the spell. He felt himself grow taut, tense, tight, hard as he realised that it was going to have to be here. Here! Like a schoolboy with no place to go—but the thought of that, too, excited him. Making do was not something he had ever encountered before, and as always the novel had an intoxicating power all of its own.

  When he touched her leg she made no objection. He could feel her impatience and he rewarded it with the slow slide of his hand beneath the filmy layers of her delicate dress, circling the cool satin of her inner thigh to the sound of a tiny moan made at the back of her throat.

  ‘You like that?’

  What could she say? Especially as his fingertips were now skating over the moist silk of her panties. Her skin was blazing, her heart was thundering, and warmth and longing overwhelmed her. For only Hashim could make her feel this way—this alive—this wonderful. Like one of those statues brought to life at the end of a play, able to live properly at last. ‘Y-yes.’ She shuddered. ‘You know I do.’

  ‘Then hold me, Sienna,’ he urged. ‘Hold me.’ And as her hands fluttered up to catch hold of the broad bank of his shoulders he gave a grim kind of smile. That was not exactly what he had meant, but for now it would have to do.

  Exulting in the freedom of actually touching him again, Sienna was aware that the tips of her fingers were pressing into the fine silk which covered the infinitely finer silk of the skin beneath. Her nails began to scrabble cat-like against the slippery material, as if she wanted to rip it from his body, and he gave a low laugh of delight.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he murmured appreci
atively. ‘Much better! I see that time has done nothing but hone your appetites.’

  His words should have warned her, or stopped her, or cautioned her, but she was in a golden fog of wanting as he began to touch her with a slow, expert caress, and too bewitched to stop him, wanting more, far more.

  He pushed aside the damp fabric of her knickers and touched her intimately, where her heat seared against him, and he felt the warmth of her and now he, too, groaned.

  ‘Hashim!’ she cried out, startled by sensation—like someone who had jumped out of a parachute after a long absence and forgotten just how mind-blowing it could be. And it had been such a long time…

  ‘You like that?’ he teased.

  The word was wrenched from her. ‘Y-yes.’

  ‘What else do you like?’

  ‘You know,’ she breathed. He seemed to know everything.

  Amid the clamour of his senses he had one last thought of clarity. That the bodyguards stationed at the end of the drive and on the outskirts of the surrounding farmland could not completely guarantee his privacy. Rogue photographers from the hated press might be hiding in the undergrowth—and what a story this would be!

  Sheikh caught in flagrante with employee!

  Ruthlessly, he continued to move his fingers against her, until, glancing down, he could see that she was lost. Her eyes were smoky and she trembled like a leaf. Was she as receptive as this with every man? he wondered grimly, unprepared for the poisonous snake of jealousy which coiled around his heart. His black eyes scanned the hallway and the dim, dark corridor which ran from the far end of it. Along there they would be unseen.

  He felt her stir restlessly and kissed her again, for he knew that a kiss held more power than anything else. That women could be made to fall in love under the spell of a kiss—for they read into it all their secret desires and needs. He felt an infinitesimal moment of hesitation before she melted right into him, and he knew then that her capitulation was certain.

  He picked her up in his arms and carried her towards the cool flagstones and the muted colours of a long, silken rug which softened it, lying her down on top of it. Sienna’s eyes fluttered open as if she had suddenly just come out of a coma and realised where she was.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  There was a strange kind of startlement on her face which almost moved him—until he reminded himself that disingenuous questions like that one were sometimes asked out of habit more than necessity. Had she learnt somewhere along the line that men were turned on by innocence? But he would play along with the game if it eased her conscience.

  ‘What do you think I’m doing?’ he said softly, as he lay down beside her—he, the Sheikh, lying on the floor with a woman. ‘I am fulfilling my wildest dream and fantasy.’

  And hers, too.

  ‘Really?’ she questioned tentatively.

  ‘But of course,’ he said smoothly, taking her into his arms, knowing that his embrace would dispel any lingering doubts. ‘I want you, Sienna. My beautiful Sienna. Indeed, I have never stopped wanting you. Did you not know that?’

  She shook her head, her mind a whirl of confusing thoughts. ‘But you—’

  ‘Shh.’

  His face was close to hers, his breath warm on her face, and all she wanted was for him to kiss her again. She felt the ground hard beneath her back, and the hard body pressing against hers, and fleetingly she wondered how and why she had allowed this to happen. But it was only very fleeting, and suddenly it didn’t matter. She couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to stop.

  Once—a long time ago—Hashim had given her a taste of passion and it had branded and spoiled her for ever. The men who had tried to get close to her subsequently had had an impossible act to follow, even if they hadn’t been aware of it at the time. And might not this single act help her to exorcise a ghost which was all too real, to move on and break free of his enchantment?

  She licked at her dry lips. ‘We do not have very long. Wh-what about the staff? The…the guests?’ she managed.

  Hashim stilled, his eyes narrowing. If there had been any tiny vestige of guilt at his cold-blooded seduction then she had banished it with her words. She knew exactly what she was doing. She was sexually hungry, as he was, and probably almost as experienced. Well, then—let her see who was the most magnificent lover of all her conquests!

  For he too had been enchanted by the sense of nearly. Of something unfinished and incomplete. In his anger—with himself as well as with her—he had sent her packing before he had properly had his fill of her, and that sense of aching and burning frustration had never quite gone away. Well, now it would—and it would be gone for ever.

  ‘We have long enough,’ he said, and the stark note of hunger made his voice sound hollow—as if it came from a long way away—and for a moment he scarcely recognised it as his own.

  And hunger made his hands tremble, made his need to join with her overwhelm him with a desire which banished all his carefully conceived plans. Forgotten was his long-nursed wish to feast upon the magnificent breasts which she had displayed for all the world to see. Instead—unbelievably and inexplicably—he found that he didn’t want to wait. No—couldn’t wait.

  With a groan, he rucked up her skirt and found himself ripping off the delicate panties. She made no protest, her legs parting for him instantly. His robes were not encumbered by belts or buttons or zips. He could slither off the light silk of his trousers with ease until he was free at last, sliding on the necessary protection with the impatient fumbling of a schoolboy. And then he was touching and nudging against her with a restrained and magnificent power. At last! Such sweet torture, this moment of expectation, but a torture to be treasured and savoured until he could bear it no longer.

  ‘Now,’ he whispered—not a question but an emphatic statement, and in answer her lips pressed into his shoulder, opening against him, closing around his flesh. He could feel the wet of her tongue and the sharp graze of her teeth and could contain himself no longer. He drove hard into her.

  There was one moment before he realised, a split-second as he worked out what was happening but by then it was too late. He saw the screwing up of her eyes, the way her little white teeth bit down on her bottom lip, and then he knew. By the mountains and the rivers!

  ‘Sienna!’ The word was torn from his lips even while her body became taut, like a bow stretched around him, before the arrow of his desire pierced through to the very heart of her. ‘Sienna!’ he said again, but this time it was on a note of wonder.

  ‘Oh,’ she breathed, the word a little feather which drifted away as the pain became transmuted into a growing and indescribable wave of pleasure and he began to move inside her.

  He had planned his own release with little concern for hers—not like the first time—but now it was different. Now it was a virtuoso performance. Never had he taken so much care with a woman as he thrust all the way inside her—but then, never had the weight of such responsibility lain so heavy on his shoulders.

  He found himself being gentle with her—an odd and unfamiliar kind of gentleness which made what was taking place seem to do so in slow motion, like a film viewed through a gauzy lens.

  ‘Ah, Sienna.’ And her name came out on a long, shuddering sigh.

  He was slow for as long as he needed to be, and then a little faster. He held back for as long as he needed to, and then he drove in again, harder and then harder still. He teased her when she breathlessly began to beg for more, relentlessly retreating to take her further along the inexorable path, and just when he thought that he could withstand no more of this exquisite self-control he felt her begin to convulse around him.

  Her cries split the air, her legs splaying and her back arching as her sweat-sheened face fell back, and she was calling his name in wonder and in disbelief. And then—oh, sweet, sweet desire—then he let go himself, in an orgasm which rocked his world on its axis—which took him completely out of his body. It was a slow drift back to earth, and he fought it ever
y bit of the way.

  It had been the most mind-blowing sex of his entire life—but that should not have surprised him, not really.

  After all, he had been waiting for this for a long, long time.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THROUGH the soft darkness Sienna became aware of her heart as it beat within her, strong and loud and steady. And then she became aware of another beat and another heart—so close to hers that it almost felt as if it was inside her. She felt warm and complete—as if she had been made whole at last—the slight aching deep inside her a glorious physical reminder of what had seemed like a perfect dream.

  Opening her eyes, she took in the scene with something approaching disbelief. It had not been a dream. She was lying on a carpet in a dim, cool corridor in Hashim’s arms, her dress around her hips, and he was staring down at her. Impossible to read what was in those glittering black eyes, but his question gave her some idea.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked quietly, his voice as deadly as the silent snakes which glided around the foothills of Qudamah’s mountains.

  ‘Tell you what?’ she teased.

  ‘Do not play games with me! You are a virgin!’

  She heard the accusation in his voice and the pink bubble of contentment began to dissolve. ‘I was,’ she corrected.

  He shook his dark head. ‘I cannot believe it!’

  ‘I’m afraid you have incontrovertible evidence, Hashim.’

  ‘But…how?’

  At any other time his incredulity would have been almost laughable, but now…now it just hurt. ‘Surely you don’t need me to tell you that?’ she questioned quietly.

  His mouth tightened. He was still reeling from this one incredible piece of knowledge which had rocked his world just as surely as his orgasm had. For the fact of her innocence had blown all his preconceptions out of the water. And it had done something else, too….

  From the start his instinct about her had been that she was innocent, but the existence of the calendar had convinced him that her innocence had been a sham. But if that instinct had been correct then what about the other ones which had crowded in on him at the time? The ones which had left him muddled and confused making him wonder if he had found in her something which he had not thought possible?