Soon she was snorting loudly through her nose as she bucked and heaved, saliva spurting out from her nose and mouth as she groaned and grunted. The sounds she was making drove the Sheikh wild, and he massaged his cock and prepared to take her hard and fast.
He brought his palm down hard on her right asscheek and then pushed down on her lower back so her pussy opened wide for him and he could drive his way into her. He stroked himself again in preparation, but as he drew close, he realized that along with the snorts were coming little neighs and whinnies from his thrashing mustang. So he kept rubbing her raw ass as she bucked and neighed, whinnied and snorted, until finally she turned her head halfway and looked at him through glazed eyes that made it clear to the Sheikh that she was far gone into this fantasy, and he needed to step in there with her.
“You’ve branded me nice and good,” she snorted, still bucking her ass into his hands as he petted and stroked her buttocks, teased her wet slit with his thumbs and fingers. “I am yours, so now ride me to glory, my stallion.”
She turned away from him and arched her back down, raising her head, letting her brown hair flow back like that mustang’s mane. The Sheikh was so turned on he could hardly see straight, and without thinking he grabbed one of those leather straps from the table, put it over her head, and then pulled it across her mouth until she was forced to open wide and bite down on the leather like a horse champing at the bit.
He held the ends of the strap like reins, making sure he didn’t pull her head back too far and hurt her neck. When he was sure she was OK, he smiled, bent down, and kissed her long and deep between her asscheeks. Then, still holding the reins, he climbed up on the workbench behind his frontier woman, his wild animal, his bucking beast.
Finally, as she snorted and neighed like a mare in heat, he spread her wide, fingering her cunt open and staring passionately at her divine canal for a moment.
And then he mounted her.
31
Her orgasm had started the moment the gigantic head of the Sheikh’s cock made first contact with her clit as it pushed its way into her slick folds, and Irene was transported to someplace far away, where she was racing across the open plains, the smell of fresh rain all around her, the sound of hooves like thunder below, the scream of eagles in the skies above. She could hear herself snort and whinny, and she knew she was no longer a woman of the world but a beast of the wild, an animal of nature, a female getting taken by a male, many species in one, all species in one.
“You are taking me beyond madness,” she heard him groan from behind and above, and she champed down harder on her bit and breathed so hard through her nose that a torrent of saliva snorted out along with the breath.
Soon she was snorting and bucking in time, reveling in how the reins felt around her, how her hair felt on her back, how the act of biting down with all her strength was releasing an instinct so wild she knew she couldn’t control it. The Sheikh fucked her hard, fucked her deep, fucked her long. Back and forth they rode like animals, their grunts and snorts filling the night air.
Now the Sheikh grabbed both reins with one hand and took hold of a fistful of her hair with his free hand, pulling both at once as he rammed up inside her, the angle of his entry making her eyes almost bug out from the places it was opening up in her.
She was shuddering and drooling for what seemed like an hour before she even remembered that she’d been coming all this while, an insane, infinite, continuous orgasm, the wave of her ecstasy rolling along like that pack of mustangs as they raced the wind, their muscular haunches glistening in the sun, their motley manes blown back by the breeze.
His cock felt so enormous for a moment she really thought she was being taken by a horse, a gigantic stallion with a cock the size of a cannon, dark and long, so heavy it took a hundred men to roll it into place. She was spread so wide for him she was sure she’d never close up again, and the feeling of such extreme penetration was driving her to the frontiers of her own sanity. Madness was within view when the crest of her orgasmic wave finally broke, and she bit down so hard on that leather strap she knew she’d have bitten off her tongue if the leather hadn’t been there.
“Ya Allah!” he roared from behind her as he pulled her hair so hard she screamed. Then he rammed that horse-cock so deep she almost passed out, yelling: “Take me, my mustang! Take all of me! Here I come! Here comes your stallion, riding in on hooves of fire and steam!”
Her orgasm had just passed its peak when he blew his load into her, that cannon of his delivering a jet of hot semen that she swore she could damn well taste, it went so far up into her. He stiffened all the way, his body going rigid like he was having a seizure, his hips pressed so tight against the cushion of her ass it was like they had merged into one being, a centaur of indeterminate species, the mane of a mustang, the cock of a stallion, the rump of a mare.
He came like a thousand stallions, flooding her prairie with his flow, breaking her totally and completely, finishing himself deep inside her, grunting and heaving till the last drop of his load was spent.
The Sheikh collapsed onto her back, flattening her with his weight, his cock still inside her after he’d finished. She liked the feeling of his heft on her body. It made her feel secure. Filled. Taken. Owned. And loved.
Loved.
And so now it was time to tell him what she already knew had happened. What she already knew was coming. What she already knew was on its way.
32
TWO MONTHS IN THE WOODS
“Are you certain of it?” the Sheikh asked, although the moment he looked into her eyes he himself was certain of it.
She was radiant and glowing, her skin bright and supple, her eyes wide and sincere, everything about her saying she was full of life. New life. The new life of their union, of their re-union.
The Sheikh felt a joy that made him reel when he allowed the realization to sink in, and he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up off the wooden floorboards, making her squeal. Sage squealed too, waving his arms from his high chair, like he wanted to be part of whatever was happening with Mama and Papa.
“God has blessed us again! And it is perfect timing as well. Nine months from now we will make our return, just in time for you to deliver our child. Ya Allah, it is perfect! You are perfect, Irene! Ya Allah, I cannot contain my joy! Where is my son?! Come here, my son,” bellowed the Sheikh, putting Irene back down but keeping his arm circled tight around her waist, palm on her belly, pulling her close as he reached for Sage. “You are a part of this too, Sage. A part of this family.” He lifted his son into his arms, kissed him on the forehead, and then pulled both of them close. “A part of my family.”
The Sheikh fought back tears as those memories of his first family came beating their way to the front of his mind, bringing waves of guilt that threatened to taint the pure joy he felt. But it did not last. Not with his son in his arms, his woman by his side, his child in her womb.
“Life is for the living,” he muttered as he swallowed the lump in his throat.
“What’s wrong?” Irene asked, pulling away and looking at his twisted face. “Did you not want this? Is it too—”
“Of course I want it. I have never wanted anything more than I want this. I just . . . it is simply . . . ya Allah, I . . . I . . .”
“You need to tell me,” she said, her voice soft and hesitant at first but quickly growing firm with resolve. “I know you lost your wife in an accident years ago. I read about it when I looked you up a year ago. But there’s more to it. Blackbeard mentioned it. And I see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice, feel it in . . . in the way you . . . the way we . . .” She swallowed hard and went on. “I didn’t ask because the past two months have been so disconnected from the real world, and I didn’t want to go back to the real world. I figured you’d tell me when it was time. And now it’s time.”
The Sheikh took a breath and
nodded. He smiled at Sage, who was puzzled by the strange mix of joy and melancholy in the air. “Very little was allowed to make it to the news when it happened. Just the fact that it was an accident.”
“Was it an accident?” Irene asked softly.
The Sheikh closed his eyes tight, staying silent for a long moment before looking at her again. “Yes and no. We had been on holiday, scuba diving off the coast of New Zealand. Both my wife and I were certified for open water, and we had dived all over the world.” He took a long breath before continuing. “That day we were exploring the base of a reef, deep down. Two of us with a guide. I had gone ahead to get a closer look at an octopus camouflaged against the coral. Minutes later I sensed something and turned just in time to see my wife inexplicably remove her mouthpiece and begin to swallow water like she had gone mad. The guide panicked, and he tried to force the mouthpiece back in. That was a huge mistake, because she’d already swallowed so much water the only chance we had was to get her to the surface. So now my drowning wife was struggling with this guide who was frantically trying to shove her mouthpiece back in. We lost precious seconds as I tried to disentangle the guide from my wife, and although I dropped all our weights and got her up so fast that I got a case of the bends, it was too late for her.”
“Oh, God, Bilaal,” Irene whispered, her face falling as she touched his cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
The Sheikh gritted his teeth as he tried to pull back the anger, the guilt, tried to remind himself that it was over, that life was for the living. Especially now. But first he had to tell her everything. Things that only he knew. Things that would make it clear that he was not a good man, that he’d never been a good man, that he could never be a good man.
“What I never told anyone,” the Sheikh said, his voice shaking, “is that when I couldn’t pull the guide away from my wife in the chaos, I grabbed his breathing apparatus and yanked out his oxygen tube. He let go immediately and I finally managed to push him away. I grabbed my wife and took her up to the surface.” He paused and took a breath. “But the guide never made it back up. Irene, he died down there too. It was open water, and they never found his body. I never spoke of it.”
Irene’s eyes narrowed, and the Sheikh’s heart went cold. Ya Allah, her opinion of me matters, he realized. It matters more than I want it to matter. Bloody hell, she has gotten to me, has she not?
“Speak,” said Bilaal. “Tell me I am a murderer. A man who does not deserve to be a father to one child, let alone two.”
Irene was quiet. “You valued your wife’s life over everything else, including your own sense of right and wrong. Your love for her was absolute. There can’t be any shame or regret in that,” she finally said. “Bilaal, I’ve heard so many stories about survival that I know that nobody knows what they’re willing to do when an emergency arises. You’re operating on pure instinct in those few seconds, and your instinct was to save your wife any way you could. No one can judge you for that. I certainly won’t. And you shouldn’t either.”
The Sheikh blinked hard as he met Irene’s unwavering gaze. She is strong, unflappable, he thought. She is fit to be the mother of kings and queens. The only question remains is whether I am fit to be her king, her man, her husband.
“There is more,” he said hoarsely, handing Sage to Irene and stepping away. He began to pace, clenching and releasing his fists as he walked the open living room of their cabin in the woods. They’d kept the real world away for two months, but now it was time. Time for her to know everything. Even if it meant she could never look him in the eye again, never see him as anything other than a man of violence and the basest emotions, a primitive creature, nothing more than a beast in fine clothes. “Much more.”
33
Irene stayed quiet as she watched the Sheikh gather his thoughts. Inside her she could feel a sense of dread rising, like some creeper vine tightening around her insides. She’d passed all kinds of tests, overcome all sorts of obstacles, defied all the odds to be here now, alive and all right, with her son by her side, another on the way, and a man who made her feel so good, so real, so complete.
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “Nothing can change what I’m feeling, Bilaal.” She cradled her son and touched her belly, instinctively understanding how women could stand by their men no matter what, that she was truly prepared to accept anything and everything about him, the father of her children, the man who made her feel like . . . a woman.
He smiled, his green eyes darkening as he looked deep into her eyes. He is deciding whether he can trust me—trust me in a way that he’s never trusted anyone, perhaps not even his lost wife, she realized. And as the realization hit, she knew this would be the biggest test, that if she could handle what was coming, she could handle anything and everything that this Sheikh might bring into her life.
“Nitrogen,” said the Sheikh, bringing a frown to Irene’s face.
“What?”
“I was near death myself when I got to the surface with my wife. Ascending so fast gave me a case of the bends. When I recovered, I found out that the investigators had checked my wife’s air tanks and found that the mixture was out of balance. Too much nitrogen and not enough oxygen. It can lead to hallucinations.”
Irene’s frown grew deeper. “That’s why your wife suddenly pulled out her mouthpiece? She lost track of where she was?”
The Sheikh nodded. “It appears so.”
“So . . . it was an accident? An oversight? A mistake? Or was it something—” She held off, not wanting to re-open his wounds any more than necessary.
“Could have been a mistake by the man filling the air tanks back on shore. Or perhaps the mixture was wrong to begin with, and someone else at the diving company was responsible. Maybe the gauge showing oxygen levels on my wife’s tank was off. Allah only knows whose fault it was.” The Sheikh took a breath and smiled thinly, his eyes meeting hers, his gaze tormented yet cold, stoic yet vulnerable. “So I blamed all of them. Every man who worked for that diving company.”
The Sheikh didn’t go on, and Irene waited for almost a minute before pursing her lips and frowning again. “So you sued the company? Put them out of business? Had the authorities file charges for negligence?”
Bilaal held that cold smile and slowly shook his head. “No, Irene. I did not sue anyone. I did not file any charges. I simply administered justice.” He blinked and broke the gaze for just a second before looking back into her eyes, the change in his expression startling her.
“Bilaal . . . are you saying that you . . . wait, what are you saying?”
“The blood test results for my wife showed a high level of certain hormones in her serum, so they did more tests and found she’d been with child.” The Sheikh gritted his teeth. “Irene, she was pregnant at the time. Our first child. She hadn’t told me. I do not think she herself knew at the time.” He clawed at his hair and continued, the words coming slowly, like he was forcing himself to say things that had never been said. Not to anyone. Perhaps not even really to himself. “I lost it, Irene. When I realized what I had lost down there, I lost my mind as well. I lost any sense of what was right or wrong, of what was fair or unfair, of what was justice or simply a man taking vengeance on the world.”
“Oh, God, Bilaal,” she muttered, instinctively placing her hand over Sage’s cheek, like she was shielding him from his father. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.”
The Sheikh nodded, that coldness back in his eyes. “Every last man. Thirteen of them. I waited one year, and then I invited everyone from that diving company for a trip on my yacht. A party, I told them, to show them how gracious and forgiving a king can be. We sailed far out to sea. I fed them, entertained them, laughed and joked with them. Then my men and I slaughtered them all. I felt nothing as I did it. We fed their remains to the sharks in the dark of night, and when the sun came up, my helicopter picked us up. We sank the boat and that was th
e end of it. Investigations went nowhere. Search and rescue teams found nothing.”
Irene stared in stunned silence as the father of her son, the man she’d given herself to body and mind, told her that he was a killer, a depraved madman who’d planned an execution for thirteen men simply for revenge. She wanted to throw up, take her son and get the hell out of here. How could she possibly understand a man who’d done something like that? How could she possibly even consider being with him, letting him near her children?!
Things have been dreamy and exciting the past two months, she reminded herself. But you still don't really know this man, do you? What happens a year from now? Five years from now, when the honeymoon has worn off? Will we have a fight that ends up with me in a dungeon, or taken out to the open desert and “made lost”? Perhaps he just breaks my neck when he gets sick of me and wants a younger woman ten years from now!
Stop it, she told herself. Take a moment and look inside yourself. You know how you’re supposed to feel: horrified, scared, morally repulsed. But how do you really feel, Irene? How do you really feel?
She looked up at this towering beast of a man who stood before her, his face rippling with anguish, even fear—fear that she would walk away. He is telling me this because he is tired of being alone with his burden. He wants me to help him. He wants me to give him a home in my heart, to accept the worst parts of him as easily as I accept the best of him. Once again, just like that night three years ago, this ruthless, violent, proud king needs my help.
He needs my shelter.
Shelter for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 9) Page 11