The Sheikh inhaled and looked down at her. “What do you mean?”
Wendy shook her head and shrugged as she sipped. “Honestly? I don’t know what I mean. I just kind of said it.”
Zahain laughed once. “Anyway,” he said. “It turned out that Samir made the announcement to the Council as a bluff. Or really a threat. I guess he wanted to see my reaction. He wanted to see if I would try to delay his ascension to the throne.” He paused and drank deep, looking away for a moment and then back at Wendy. “Delay it for about nine months.”
Wendy blinked and took a quick breath. “Until your child is born.”
Zahain nodded. “Our child.”
There was silence for a moment, as if the words needed to sink in. It would be months before everything completely sank in, Wendy thought. But every little bit helped get her one step closer to sanity, she figured.
Wendy finally broke the silence. “And what was your reaction, Zahain?” she asked quietly.
Zahain frowned, hesitating for a moment. “Disgust. Disgust with myself, Wendy. That was the moment I knew my father was wrong. There is no way to know how a child will turn out, Wendy. Each child is an innocent, and genetics will only go so far to decide whether someone will be a hero or a villain. If I had gone through with the deception, perhaps in some way I myself would have become a villain, I thought. And then what kind of a father would I be, Wendy? How would I be able to look our son or daughter in the eye and teach them about right and wrong, Wendy?” He paused, taking a deep breath, his gaze sending a chill through her, but a chill that somehow warmed her to the core. “How would I be able to look at you with a clear conscience again, Wendy?”
Wendy smiled as she let the warmth envelop her, and now she leaned in and allowed his hard body to support her weight. She sighed as he pulled her in for an embrace, and she looked up into his eyes and smiled.
“You mean the way you were looking at me when I walked out of the changing room?” she said now, her voice low and husky as she moved against him. “Is that what you mean by looking at me with a clear conscience, noble Sheikh?”
“Oh, Wendy . . .” The Sheikh’s voice came out like a whisper, and Wendy could feel his entire body harden as she leaned against him, running the back of her hand against his hard, washboard stomach. The muscles tightened at her touch, and as she looked down into the water, at the front of his navy trunks, she could see his length push against the thin wet cloth as she drew close.
“You did the right thing, my Sheikh,” she whispered as she reached down under the water, grasping his shaft through the cloth. He was so hard, so damned hard, and she could barely contain herself as she felt him lean in for a warm, feverish kiss.
She felt his tongue in her mouth just as he slid his hand beneath the left cup of her bikini top, grasping her breast full, squeezing firmly as his fingers searched for her nipple, and now he pinched her large red nib as he kissed her, and she tightened her grip on his heavy shaft that was filling out even more in her fist, forcing her to open her fingers just to contain his girth.
“Oh, God, Zahain,” she whispered as she pulled back away for a minute and looked down at her hand, just to make sure that what she was feeling was real. He looked massive beneath the shimmering water of the black marbled pool, and she whispered his name again as he lifted both cups of her bikini top, releasing her breasts that were gleaming with wetness, the clean water rolling off in beads, each droplet catching the sun and making them look like diamonds on her curves.
He pressed and kneaded her breasts as she pulled on his shaft, her gaze taking in the way his chest and shoulder muscles contracted and stiffened as he touched her body, pressed her breasts hard, pinched her large red nipples so tight she almost cried out in pleasure. Wendy could see every muscle in his broad, brown torso clearly defined, and she let herself follow the trail of his ab muscles all the way down past his flat stomach, down to where the waistband of his trunks was already being pushed out by the force of his erection, the erection that Wendy was gently coaxing to full mast.
Now she reached down with the other hand, thumb and forefinger grasping the white drawstring holding his trunks up, and she undid the knot smoothly, gasping as his trunks loosened immediately, the elastic unable to compete against the force of his hardness, the strength of his need.
She pushed the trunks down past his muscular hips as he groaned and called her name, pinching her nipples with fury, his large hands gathering her breasts and squeezing with such strength that Wendy could barely focus. But she did focus, and she whispered, “Oh, God, Zahain” when his thick brown cock sprung into view as the trunks went down.
Zahain grasped her shoulders as he stepped out of his trunks, and now he was naked before her, bronze and shining, hard and glistening, his eyes narrowed to slits under the warm sun, his body trembling with the ecstasy of her touch.
It all seemed so simple, so truthful, so pure, Wendy thought as she watched the Sheikh roll his head back in pure passion. Our bodies cannot lie, can they? It is only our minds that twist things and make things complicated. Sometimes we forget that we are animals when it comes down to it. Animals who were born to enjoy the simple physical joys of being alive.
She looked down once more now as Zahain stepped back against the side of the pool, resting his elbows on the black marble and arching his back, pushing his hips forward. Wendy watched in disbelief now as the head of the Sheikh’s cock broke the surface of the water, and it looked gigantic in the bright sunlight, red and clean, round and perfect, and she stepped up to him, touching his chest, his stomach, all of him, and now she lowered herself, squatting down in the shallow water, the surface gently lapping at the top of her breasts which floated up slightly before her.
And as she squatted down in that warm pool, surrounded by palm trees, looked upon by no one but the midday sun, she slowly took him into her warm, ready mouth as he stiffened and groaned, calling out her name with a passion that made her weak.
He felt warm against her tongue, and God was he big, she thought as she tried to control her breathing, which was pretty damned hard because she was so worked up herself, so hot herself. She could feel her own sticky wetness in her bikini bottoms even though her hips were underwater, and she took a trembling breath through her nose and opened her mouth wider as she slowly took the Sheikh’s full length.
She descended on him until her lips were down close to the base of his shaft, and she could feel his heavy tip against the back of her throat, perhaps farther, and he was so thick inside her that her tongue was flattened against the bottom of her mouth, and he stood completely still, his hands on her shoulders. Now she slowly began to move, sliding her wet lips along his rock-hard shaft as he groaned, his grip tightening on her shoulders, fingers now rubbing the back of her neck as she sucked and stroked, reaching for his balls as Zahain began to move his hips.
His fingers ran through her hair as she went down harder, sucked deeper, swallowing her own saliva even as she drooled from the sides of her mouth. Zahain was calling her name, muttering in Arabic, and from above them Wendy could feel the light of the sun warming her bare back as she moved down on her man, the Sheikh of Farrar, the king of this land.
“Oh, my God, Wendy,” he gasped as she took his full length back into her mouth, her hands gently massaging his heavy balls that were swinging as he bucked his hips, pushing himself forward to receive her mouth as she went down again.
The water lapped at the bottom of Wendy’s chin as she sucked and moaned, one hand rubbing Zahain’s thick shaft when she pulled back, the other still pulling at him from beneath, coaxing him closer, closer, closer . . . and the water was churning now as she went faster, and Zahain’s grip on her hair tightened until he was holding her head firmly and pushing himself into her like he could not control himself, and she moaned and hummed as she sucked, and he was groaning and muttering in Arabic, and she could hear the sounds of nature around them, insects and birds, perhaps watching and taking delight in two
animals enjoying the beauty of passionate intimacy, and she sucked and pulled, rolling her tongue around his impossibly thick girth, going down harder as she felt his body start to tighten, his hips start to move with desperate need, and they were going so fast the water around Wendy’s face was being whipped into a white foam, and the water splashed her face, her eyes, got up her nose, and she sputtered and blinked but did not let up, kept going, her right hand pulling at the Sheikh, and he was shouting now, his entire body beginning to go into a massive convulsion, and with a final scream of “YA ALLAH!” he GRABBED her hair and HOWLED to the heavens and EXPLODED in her, the force of his orgasm almost knocking Wendy backwards and underwater, but his grip on her hair was tight and she stayed in position, holding on as she took him in, keeping her lips clamped firmly around the wide base of his cock, her right hand still coaxing out his earth-shattering climax until the very end, until he collapsed against the side of the pool, totally broken by what Wendy had brought out in him.
Zahain slowly hoisted himself up over the side of the pool and lay flat on his back right there, his brown body glistening with sweat and water, his cock still throbbing, still hard, a thick bead of his seed on its tip. He looked at her with eyes that were bloodshot with exertion, but that still could not hide the intensity of what Wendy knew he was feeling right now, feeling for her.
She wiped her mouth and smiled at the Sheikh. She should have felt dirty but she felt clean. She should have felt filthy but she felt pure. She should have felt like a whore but she felt like a woman. Like his woman.
And for the first time, the first time in three weeks, she looked into his eyes and thought that yes, they were getting there. All of it was happening backwards, but now they were getting there, getting to that point.
They were falling in love.
31
Love.
The word sounded so strange in her head, now that Wendy thought about it. Had she truly used that word over the past three weeks, she wondered now. Yes, the Sheikh was her lover. Yes, they had made love—GOD, they had made love! Yes, they were going to have a child together, and certainly that knowledge had created a bond that felt solid, felt real, felt true and safe. But had they been in love with each other until now? Especially now . . . now that . . . now that he had asked . . . asked her . . .
Shouldn’t love have come first, she thought now as she forced herself to think clearly. She ran her finger along the raised embroidery of a sprawling red divan nestled against the wall in a cozy alcove in her massive bedroom chambers. First romance, then love, then marriage, then sex, then a child . . . that was the way of old, was it not? And here she was, in this beautiful old palace in an exotic land, pregnant with her lover’s child, happily sitting here and musing on how straightforward it seemed that everything was happening backwards!
Wendy thought of that movie about time travel, where someone said that time was really just like space, that the past and the future both exist at the same time but in different cosmic spaces, just like England and America both exist at the same time but in different physical spaces. That’s what gives us that feeling of destiny sometimes, the sense of “this was meant to be.” It’s because the future already exists somewhere else, and we know this, deep down.
The knowledge comes to us sometimes, in dreams, intuition, irrational feelings. It comes when we let our guard down, allow ourselves to leave behind logic and reason for just a moment, to let a deeper knowledge seep in, remind us that knowledge of the future is buried inside us, guides our intuition, informs our instincts.
So is that why all of this feels so right even though it is so damned backwards, so damned surreal that it should drive me insane but is instead making me feel warm and whole, optimistic and joyful? Is it because deep down I’ve always known I would meet Zahain, always known I would carry his child, always known I would fall in love with him? And so it doesn’t matter in what sequence it all happens?
All of it made her head spin, and she sighed and stretched out on the divan. Her skin felt new and puckered like a child’s, and her thighs and hips ached from the exertion of what she had done beneath the private waters of that black-marble pool.
But it was what happened next that she was still trying to come to terms with, still trying to even believe:
The two of them had laid together on the black marble for some time after that, and finally Zahain had taken her to the soft grass beneath the palm trees and made furious love to her, twice, their bodies soaked with sweat when it was over, the scent of their combined musk heavy even against the thick fragrance of the palm leaves.
After they washed together, Zahain had told her the rest of what had transpired with Samir, and Wendy thought back to it now:
“So my brother and I have come to an agreement, Wendy,” Zahain had said as they sat together in a bamboo-walled steam room, Wendy draped in a soft white towel, Zahain naked as a buck. “About the future of Farrar.”
Wendy had looked over at Zahain with interest. She had in fact been wondering where things had ended up with the Sheikh and his brother. “Go on,” she said. “I’m listening.”
“Well, the two of us agreed that the future of Farrar should be placed in the hands of those most qualified—and motivated—to care for it,” Zahain said, looking at his hands as he spoke.
“OK . . . that makes sense, of course. And right now, that would be you, correct, Zahain?”
The Sheikh nodded, taking a deep breath and exhaling steam. “Yes, but we also talked about the next generation of Farrar’s leaders.” He glanced at Wendy, looking her up and down and then looking away again. “My future children. And Samir’s children too.”
Wendy nodded, staying quiet as the steam built up around them, making it hard to see the Sheikh clearly.
Zahain smiled now, his shoulders moving as he let out a quick laugh. “Of course, we agreed that it would be ideal to actually wait until these unborn children are actually walking on this earth, growing into the men and women they will become, developing their own interests and capabilities . . . yes, we thought that perhaps it would make sense to actually judge the next generation on merit, not just lineage and hierarchy. But of course . . .”
“But of course, lineage and hierarchy is how it’s always been done, and the laws cannot be changed so easily,” Wendy said.
“Yes.”
“So what can you do? I mean, there has to be a way to change the laws, yes?”
Zahain shook his head. “Wendy, our laws are not decided by a legislature or a congress or by argument and debate. Our legal system is deeply tied to our scripture, and so changing an old law would be akin to changing a part of your Bible. It would require a religious reformation of sorts. A religious revolution. And something like that would cause tremors beyond the borders of our land, throughout the Middle East, even the Islamic world. It could cause more problems that it might solve!”
“But you’ve already made several major reforms, Zahain. I’ve read about how you’ve eliminated all brutal physical punishments, changed so many old and barbaric rules. What about all that? That was change, wasn’t it?”
Zahain nodded again, shifting on the wooden bench and sighing. “Yes, Wendy. But sadly those are only recorded as the Edicts of Sheikh Zahain. They are not permanent changes to the old laws—those old laws may as well be written in stone.”
“What do you mean?”
“These edicts will only stay in effect for as long as I am Sheikh, Wendy. They can also be overturned by unanimous rule of the Royal Council. So once Samir takes my place—well, takes HIS place, I suppose—it will be up to him and the Council to ratify those edicts one by one. If he does not, they will lapse, be no longer valid. The old laws will come back into effect. Indeed, the old laws will never truly go away, Wendy. I myself have ratified many changes that my father had enacted as his edicts.” Zahain paused now, swallowing hard as his look intensified. “But I have also allowed some of what my father did to lapse, because I thought the old la
ws were more fair.”
Wendy thought for a moment, her smooth forehead crinkling as she looked up, frowning through the steam. “But then why didn’t your father simply pass an edict that you would be Sheikh for your entire life? Then once you were Sheikh, the edict would technically still stand, right?”
Zahain smiled and nodded, a look of admiration in his eyes as he glanced at Wendy. “Good insight, Wendy. In fact I myself did not think of it during that conversation with Father. It is likely that he tried, but the members of the Royal Council at the time overturned it—after all, I was still a young, billionaire playboy at the time, and Samir was a child. The Council would not have been comfortable with an edict like that.” He thought for a moment, his eyes looking distant as he spoke. “That’s probably the reason, I’m sure. But I always wondered, Wendy. Always wondered if . . .”
“If?”
“If my father even tried to pass an edict that would have secured the throne for me for life. I wonder if in the end he could not bring himself to completely remove Samir from the line to the throne.” Zahain smiled now. “And so, despite his talk of overruling emotion for logic, of choosing the good of the country over family and tradition, I like to believe that even my father could not overrule his own deepest paternal instincts towards Samir.” He paused for a long time before continuing. “And you know what, Wendy? It makes me feel a certain love for the man, a certain respect I never had for him when I was young, when I looked to him as a stone-cold leader, an immovable mountain. It makes him seem . . . I don’t know . . .”
“It makes him seem human, Zahain. It makes him seem human. And it’s what allowed you to find the humanity in yourself, to not allow the cold, calculating part of you to overrule what you know is right. You chose to bring your wayward brother closer instead of pushing him away, Zahain. And you sacrificed your own ambition to do it.”
Zahain nodded, looking down at his hands again. “So maybe my father did teach me something about how to be king.” He glanced at Wendy, and although she wasn’t sure, it looked like there were tears in his eyes. “But it’s something I might never have learned if I hadn’t met you, Wendy. If not for you. I walked down this path because of you, Wendy. I walked down this path with you.”
Curves for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 1) Page 12