In Too Deep

by Brenda Jackson; Olivia Gates

  But now that he’d assured her of the extent of her gains from their arrangement, she’d resume playing her part with even more commitment. This past week, her performance had surpassed his wildest expectations. He’d felt her dissolving in his arms, inundating him with hunger, with urgent need for everything he’d do to her….

  How is she faking all this?

  A thought struck him with the force of a mallet to the head.

  What if she wasn’t? What if, apart from her mercenary motives for their marriage, she lusted after him for real?

  If this was true, it changed everything….

  “Adham. Earth to Adham.”

  He raised burning eyes to the booming voice. He found he’d come to a full stop in the middle of the field with Nicolas staring at him in surprise and concern. He and the other players were wiping off the clumps of mud and grass they were covered in.

  “The game is right here, buddy.” Jacob Anders, who played his team’s number one position, smirked. “But it’s clear you’re not.”

  “Sí,” Nicolas agreed. “Why don’t we resume our practice when you don’t feel the urge to take whatever’s eating you on the lawn and pelt us with it?”

  Adham grimaced at his teammates. He wasn’t up to their teasing. He swung Layl away and galloped off the field.

  They were right. He had to take this out on the cause of his turmoil. On Sabrina.

  If she wanted him, she was going to get him.

  If mind-blowing pleasure was all they could have out of this “deal,” then they’d have it. They’d never stop having it.

  He snapped his cell phone out, pressing her speed-dial number.

  Her phone rang until the line disconnected. He dialed again immediately. Four more disconnections later, and he was ready to commit violence.

  She answered the fifth time. Or rather, the line opened. She said nothing.

  But he could feel her on the other end. He could swear he felt her breath flaying his face in its heat and sweetness.

  He growled with a spike of anger and arousal, “Why didn’t you answer right away?”

  Silence on her end. Then her unsteady inhalation skewered his brain, forked more steel into his erection. How he remembered those fractured breaths that had driven him mad as he’d plunged inside her….

  “I answered now.” Her voice was clipped, distant, yet it was still the mellow caress he’d replayed in his memory nonstop, crooning her need for him, crying out as her urgency rose, sharpening with the pain of his first invasion, then losing all inhibition as he occupied her, as her pleasure peaked. “Anything you want?”

  I want everything, he wanted to roar.

  But he was going to get everything. Starting tonight. No more holding back. For any reason. For better and probably for worse than he could imagine, she was his wife. And he planned to gorge himself on all the advantages of that fact. He’d suffer the disadvantages gladly when he had her total abandon to negate it all.

  Her father’s bargain might have blinded him for a while, but he could see clearly now. There was no way she’d faked her responses. Her soul might be that of a mercenary, but her body was that of a hedonist. But what mattered was that he was convinced now that she suffered his same predicament. She craved the pleasure only he could bring her.

  “Sebastian is holding a gala party tonight in the VIP tent,” he said, his voice thick with pent-up hunger. “It’s to celebrate our marriage. It’s imperative we show our hosts that we appreciate their thoughtfulness and efforts.”

  After another protracted silence, she asked expressionlessly, “How do you suggest we do that?”

  “Sebastian requested that we attend the party in full royal garb. Have Hasnaa advise you on how to dress. I’ll send you outfits and sets of jewelry to choose from. I want you to be my princess tonight.”

  Another silence stretched in the wake of his directives. Then a tremulous inhalation spilled from lips he knew to be petal soft and cherry flushed and dewy. He hardened beyond agony. “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” he hissed with the abrasion of arousal, the knowledge that it would be unendurable hours before he could assuage it. “Don’t straighten or restrain your hair. Leave its curls wild.”

  She muttered what he assumed was an agreement, then hung up.

  He stared at the phone as if he expected her to call back, to say more. He knew she wouldn’t.

  The dynamics between them had changed. Just hours ago there’d been no acknowledgement of how it was between them. Now it was out in the open, and she’d dropped the adoring-bride act in private.

  But her indignation this morning had been about more than her worry for her future—it had contained true frustration. No matter why they’d ended up married, she’d expected him, wanted him, to wallow in the carnal connection they shared.

  That must be the reason behind her standoffishness just now. She must think he still intended to deprive her of what she needed.

  She’d be relieved that he’d decided to disregard how she and her father had set him up and would drag her into the tumults of passion. At every opportunity.

  And if they’d attained that much pleasure when he’d been so careful with her, when she’d been so untried, now that he could unleash his passion…well, he couldn’t even imagine how it would be between them. In fact, exacting retribution on her through sensual torment would only take it all to explosive levels.

  Starting tonight.

  “I think you’ve chosen the outfit that best showcases your beauty, ya Ameerah Sabrina.”

  Sabrina caught the genial Khumayran woman’s eyes in the mirror. Hasnaa was truly a beauty, as her name proclaimed her to be. She was Jameel’s wife and now her head lady-in-waiting.

  She attempted a smile, to thank her for her reassurance. She could see for herself it came out a grimace.

  Thankfully, Hasnaa didn’t notice her forced attempt as she fussed around her, adjusting her outfit. It was the first time that Sabrina had availed herself of Hasnaa’s services. And only because Adham had demanded it.

  He wanted her to be his princess tonight. To look the part, that was. She felt obligated to meet his demand. To honor the pact that her father had made. She wouldn’t give Adham a chance to say a Grant didn’t uphold her end of a deal. Even if she herself felt there was nothing more to uphold, felt mired in a nightmare she’d never wake up from. A prison her father and Adham had conspired to throw her into.

  She’d felt desperation before, with each loss in her life. But each time, she’d forged on, because there had always been something to strive for, someone else who mattered. Someone who’d been there for her, too.

  When her mother died when she was twelve, she turned her grief into more love for her father, even though it wasn’t easy being his daughter, especially after his bereavement made him even more ultra-protective of her. Then years passed and she realized the hardest part of being his daughter had nothing to do with his actions and everything to do with who he was.

  She realized the magnitude of the problem when she entered college. She lost count of the men who pursued her for her father’s assets. To make things worse, her father, in his attempts to protect her from opportunists, started supplying one suitable bachelor after another. She considered those men not much better than the vultures, since they also wanted to acquire her because of her father’s assets, if in a merger rather than a takeover.

  So she told him that she wasn’t interested in marriage, but in graduate studies and a career.

  After years of pursuing her with insistence that marriage didn’t preclude a career, Thomas gave up, leaving her to her plans. She now realized he only did because he’d plunged into depression and debt. Then, just after she obtained her degrees, he had his heart attack.

  But all through her dread and desperation, she’d been strong for him. Then he’d died. But Adham had been there, and she wasn’t alone. She had him. Or so she’d thought. She was alone. She had no one. Certainly not Adham.

&
nbsp; She gazed at her reflection in the gold-framed, full-length mirror. It felt like she was looking at herself inside a gilded cage. Completing the picture of captive luxury was one of the outfits he’d sent her. They’d all been beyond breathtaking. Not that she’d appreciated their exquisiteness. She hadn’t chosen the outfit she was wearing now, discerning that it would best suit her as Hasnaa had implied. She’d dragged it haphazardly off the rack.

  She looked at it now, seeing it for the first time. A ravishing red outfit that blended all the ornate lushness of Adham’s native Khumayran culture with stunning modern twists.

  The sarilike, handmade, intricately worked and embroidered creation and its dupatta—what Hasnaa was now busily securing over her “wild curls”—were a masterpiece. A dream of silk, georgette and organza worked in fine gold threads, semiprecious stones, sequins, cutwork, mirror, pearl and crystal work.

  To top it all off was one of the sets of jewelry he’d sent her. Hasnaa had chosen for her what she deemed went best with her outfit, a set consisting of two necklaces—a choker and a longer piece that framed her cleavage to maximum effect—earrings that reached to her shoulders, and bangles that covered half of her right forearm. Each piece had carefully cut and polished multicolored gemstones embedded into delicate twenty-four karat gold.

  And to think she’d thought he was being indulgent when she’d found the enormous collection lining that extensive dressing room. She’d felt uncomfortable, accepting all that, even from the husband who could afford endless luxuries. She hadn’t wanted the shadow of materialistic considerations between them. But she’d reluctantly conceded it was part of looking the part in appearances vital to his status.

  But now she knew the truth. This wasn’t an indulgence.

  This was part of her price.

  And she was to wear it, like a tag. Another check on his status report.

  A bubble of nausea pushed against her diaphragm. She thanked and dismissed Hasnaa, and collapsed on the nearest chair the moment the door closed. She lowered her forehead to her knees.

  She fought back a wave of sickness that seemed to rise from her soul. Suspicion struck her, deepening her distress.

  This could be what Adham had hoped for.

  She could be pregnant. It would be so easy to find out.

  She couldn’t find out. Not yet. She didn’t want to know one way or another when she asked him to end their pact.

  But first, she had to play the delirious bride again.

  This time she would indeed have to act.

  But it would be the last time she did.

  Six

  “Oh, my, Sabrina. You look a-mazing!” Julia exclaimed, her chocolate-brown eyes wide with admiration.

  “You look like a princess right out of a fairy tale!” Catherine exclaimed, awe sparkling in her eyes.

  “Okay, the verdict is in!” Vanessa Hughes, Sebastian’s sister, said as she finished her inspection of Sabrina, looking every bit the fashionista with her killer body wrapped in a gold second-skin, plunging-neck, floor-length gown. “This is the most incredible outfit I’ve ever seen in my life!”

  Sabrina flashed a smile at the women she’d come to like immensely, a smile as genuine as her condition allowed. “You are just too kind, ladies. I feel like a prize idiot here, coming all dressed up as if for a masquerade, while you’re all floating around looking like supermodels fresh off the runway.”

  “Are you kidding?” Vanessa scoffed. “I’d give anything for an outfit like that. But I doubt I’d carry it off half as well as you do. You have that exotic tinge to your looks, that…heat to your coloring—you just set the whole thing on fire.”

  “See?” Sabrina smiled again. “Too kind, I tell you. But let me say something else. All the ego boosting is very much appreciated.”

  “As if you need our ego boosting,” Julia said, winking, “with a man like Sheikh Adham, who has the female population drooling, literally composing odes in homage to your charms.”

  “And accompanying every word of his sonnets with a white-hot look,” Vanessa added. “The guy showers you with more ego boosts than most women could handle.”

  “Ah, those hot-blooded desert princes.” Julia sighed. “If only our men were that demonstrative and vocal.”

  “But Sheikh Adham is far from being either,” Catherine, who knew Adham well, interjected. “He’s certainly the best employer I could ask for, but in my opinion, reserved and uncommunicative are his middle and last names.”

  “Then this is an even greater testament to your charms, Sabrina.” Vanessa held her hands together beneath her chin in a swooning gesture. “And their effect on him. I’ve never seen a man so overtly in love before!”

  Each word hit Sabrina like a whip. She wanted to beg them to stop, to tell them that he’d only been putting on a show. That it had fooled them, these intelligent, discerning women. Just as it had fooled her. Until he’d slammed her with the truth about his emotions—or rather, his lack of them.

  The memory of his passionless gaze as he’d decimated her world lanced through her once more. She felt her smile splintering, its cracked edges driving into her flesh.

  She had to excuse herself before the heat pricking behind her eyes dissolved into an unstoppable flood.

  Yeah, that would ruin her image as “his princess.”

  Perhaps she shouldn’t fight the tears after all.

  No. She wasn’t only his so-called princess, she was a Grant. Foremost, she was herself. She didn’t break down. Not in public. And she would stop doing it in private. She was done letting him control her emotions, her life. She was taking control, as of now.

  “And I thought you looked right out of Arabian Nights, Adham.”

  Sabrina swung around at hearing Sebastian’s amused comment. He faded from her awareness the moment she registered him.

  Adham was beside him. Adham as she’d never seen him. In the garb that revealed what he was underneath the projection of modernity, the polish of advancement.

  A raider of the desert who seized whatever he wanted, made willing slaves of his conquests, whose ruthlessness was only matched by the heartlessness of his seduction. A being from another world where everything was laced with mystery and magic, edged by danger, drenched in excess, in passion.

  In a pitch-black abaya that spread over his endless shoulders and billowed around him like a shroud of mystery, a high-collared top embroidered with zari gold thread, and pants fitted into leather boots, he looked like a supernatural being who descended to earth to rule, to conquer, an avenging angel from the realm of oriental fables.

  She swallowed. What felt like ground glass slid down her throat. His beauty, his majesty…hurt. Her stupidity, in believing he’d fallen for her as totally as she had for him, hurt more.

  “I did tell you to wait until you saw Sabrina, Seb,” Adham murmured as his arm snaked around her waist, his hand dipping beneath her top’s edge to singe her flesh with the heat of his electricity-wielding fingers. “But even I couldn’t have imagined how spellbinding the trappings of my culture could be until her beauty and grace adorned them.”

  Her instinctive reaction was to swoon at the extravagance of his praise, to melt into the possession of his touch. It took all of three heartbeats before reality sank its fangs into her and had her lurching away as if from burning tentacles.

  Adham’s eyes didn’t betray any change of expression, apart from the fluctuation in his pupils’ size. Without missing a beat, he pulled her to him again, as if he hadn’t realized she’d pulled away. Or maybe he wouldn’t let her in front of those whose opinion mattered to him. “I hope I didn’t leave you waiting long, ya jameelati. I should have escorted you here or at least been here to receive you, to be the first to look on your enchantment tonight. But there was an emergency with one of the ponies.”

  “What?” Catherine eyes widened, her smile fractured, alarm catching her off guard. “What happened? Which pony?”

  “Rahawan,” Adham answered, sparing her
a glance before returning his sizzling focus to Sabrina. “He had severe colic. I called Dr. Lima and stayed until Rahawan started recovering.”

  “Oh, I’ll go.”

  This made Adham relinquish his hold over Sabrina’s eyes, stretch an arm in Catherine’s way, cutting her movement short. “Of course you won’t, Catherine.”

  “But I am still working for you until the end of the season,” Catherine protested. “Even if I weren’t, your horses will always be mine, too, Sheikh Adham. I have to make sure he’s all right.”

  “He is. But thanks for your continued caring and commitment. Richard is a lucky man to have such a loyal, compassionate woman. Now put your mind at ease and enjoy the party. I intend to.” He turned to Sabrina, hugging her closer. “Now that I’m with you, it’s a certainty that I will.” He looked to the women. “May I borrow my bride, ladies? It’s been a long day without her.”

  The women giggled and fanned themselves, winking at her as he swept her away.

  Once they were out of earshot, she tried to step back from his embrace, struggling to make it look like she wasn’t pushing him away. He only tightened his hold, bearing down on her with his heat and voracity. His fake voracity.

  He bent to take her lips. She turned her head at the last second. His lips latched on her cheek instead. He burned it with his kiss. “I thought I could wait for later, but I can’t.”

  She pushed harder at him, managing to put him at arm’s length. “Listen, nobody can hear you now, so you can quit it.”

  “Quit what?”

  “The act. Go light on the theatrics. Less is more and all that. Look around and learn from your friends how a man in love is supposed to behave. Sebastian and Richard are not oozing all over their women.”

  “Oozing?” His frown was spectacular.

  “Yes, oozing. You better watch it. You’re crossing from convincing underacting to ridiculous overacting.”