The Sheikh's Claim

by Olivia Gates

  “Then your mother validated all my suspicions and far more—and you kept proving her right. I despised myself, escalating those feelings every day because of the way I let you treat me, and I still couldn’t quit you. Then I really started hating what I had become when I kept inventing quarrels with you, hoping to nudge you into addressing the issues that were poisoning me. I was too much of a coward to face you with them, out of fear that you’d just shrug and say, ‘If this bothers you, tough,’ and walk away. So I started to self-destruct. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, kept obsessing over every day you didn’t call, every minute you stayed away. I lost weight and jobs. I was on the verge of losing my mind. And I didn’t have any support system to fall back on, since I’d shut everyone out. I felt I had to choose between being with them or being with you.

  “I chose you, and lost everything. The one person I had left, the only one I could talk to, was Patrick. And he stepped in and gave me the support I needed to save myself.”

  And she fell silent. He knew she had no more to say.

  She’d said enough.

  He threw back his head against the couch, closed his eyes, suppressing the chaos that threatened to tear him apart, soul and psyche.

  Finally he opened his eyes, rose and walked to her, holding her raw, stormy gaze. Then he went down on his knees before her again.

  He gently aborted her jerk to get away, taking her hands in his. “You should have told me everything long ago. What I have to say is not much, but it’s all I have, for now.

  “I can’t begin to describe my shame and regret at what my mother stole of your childhood and family life, what she told you about me and the cost to both of us. But I was never party to her manipulations, was never tainted by her snobbery. I was never ashamed of you—I was the very opposite, and this had nothing to do with the secrecy I imposed on our relationship. I thought there would be only losses and trouble if the world knew what we had.

  “I also thought we had the perfect arrangement, the best of all worlds. We were young, were building our careers and we had each other. I didn’t think there was anything more than that to dream of. I was ignorant of the true history between our families, didn’t realize you came to our relationship with baggage and insecurities and bitterness. But I should have realized something was deeply wrong when you started flaring up, shouldn’t have rationalized it because I was content with the way things were. At the time, I did think you appreciated the secrecy as much as I did for your family’s conservative sensibilities, and so you wouldn’t be dragged into the crosshairs of the paparazzi who hounded me. I welcomed having those women on my arm because they diverted attention from you, kept you safe. But I was yours alone, Lujayn....” Something still stopped him from admitting that he’d never stopped being hers, would never stop. “And I believed you were mine. That’s why I went out of my mind when you left me for Patrick. Anything I did with him, anything I said to you, was fueled by my pain and jealousy. I was blind and I hurt you just the same as if I’d meant to. And for that, I will never forgive myself, will do anything so you can have the peace I robbed you of all these years.”

  Her features trembled and she pitched forward to bury her face in her hands, ended up pressing it into their entwined fingers. Her flesh, her tears, singed him, had him groaning, dragging her to his chest. She burrowed her face into him, rubbing against him like a cat desperate for her human’s feel and affection, her lips over his heart.

  His hands felt like they didn’t belong to him as they fumbled his shirt buttons open, needing that touch like he needed his next heartbeat. Her moan against his flesh as those petal-soft lips crushed their lushness into him was a bolt of pure emotion and carnality, striking him dead center through his being.

  His fingers tangled into her silken tresses, dug into her scalp, shaping her beloved head. Her moans grew longer, louder, confessing her equal upheaval as she opened her lips and the wet heat of her tongue scalded him. That simmering state of arousal she had him in by just existing, that had been hovering on the verge of igniting with her nearness, exploded into a conflagration that consumed him body and soul.

  He crushed her to him, the starved for feel of her sending his senses spiraling beyond retrieval. He took all he could of her worshipping, before a hand at her nape raised her to him, brought her roving, tormenting lips up to his, bit down into the lower one, almost breaking the inner flesh in his urgency. His teeth held there as he trembled all over like she did, with the effort of holding back. Her cry razed through him as she opened fully to him, her ripe breasts pressing into his chest, demanding his domination. He laved away his bite, thrust his tongue inside her, draining her sweetness and whimpers of pleasure. His kisses grew wrenching as he pushed away her jacket, dipped beneath her blouse to spread his hands over the scorching velvet of her back, arching her against him.

  He poured his demand, his plea, his confession, into her depths. “Wahashtini ya’yooni, bejnoon. Guleeli ya rohi, wahashtek? Tebghini kamma abghaki?”

  “Yes, Jalal, yes…I’ve been going insane with missing you, craving you, too. How I missed you—how I crave you....”

  That was all he needed. The license to claim her, reclaim them both from the desert they’d existed in without the other’s passion and fulfillment.

  In one movement, he was on his feet with his woman in his arms. But when he neared the room’s door she gasped, wriggled. His lips buried into her neck. “We’re alone.”

  His reassurance defused her tension, had her resume owning any inch of flesh he’d exposed to her.

  In a minute he took her across the threshold of the expansive bedroom suite where he’d lain awake, burning in a hell of deprivation, for the past weeks. Her teeth were scraping his stubble as he placed her on the bed. He straddled her hips and started to rid her of those prim clothes that had been playing havoc with his imagination, had her naked in what felt like a torturous hour. Then he pulled back to look down at her.

  Her breasts were a feast, her hips flared with fertility, making her waist look more nipped, her belly no longer flat, but a lush curve, her arms round and firm, her legs long and smooth and honey-hued, her mound plump and trimmed.

  He followed all those treasures, in sweeps of wonder. “You robbed me of my sanity from the moment I saw you, when you were nothing like what you’ve become. Now—now I’m in danger of devouring you for real. Ya Ullah, Lujayn…what have you done to yourself? Nothing should be this beautiful.”

  “Don’t exaggerate—I’ve put on too much weight....”

  “There can’t be too much of you for me. You were slim, then you became almost gaunt, not that it made me want you any less. But now…” He skimmed a coveting hand from the curve of her strong, square shoulder to her heavy breast, blood roaring in his ears, his loins, as its warmth and resilience overflowed in his large hand. “Now you’re beyond glorious. My silver-eyed enchantress has become a goddess.”

  She thrust her breast into his hold, inviting a more aggressive possession. “You were always a god, now you’ve become something even more.”

  He bent to award himself with compulsive suckles of her peach-colored, erect nipples, groaning at her taste and feel, as she pushed her flesh deeper into his mouth, whimpering her greed for more as she treated his clothes as he’d treated hers.

  Delight expanded through him as he surrendered to her impatience, wallowing in it as she exposed him to her hunger.

  He came down on top of her, plundering her fragrant mouth in savage kisses, his hands seeking all her secrets, taking every license, owning every inch. His fingers sought her molten depths, delighted in feeling them clamp around him in demand, as she keened and undulated beneath him, accepting the pleasure, inviting him with movements and words to do whatever he wished to her. She was too ready, as she always was for him; he brought her to orgasm around his fingers with just a few thrusts.

  As she shook with that warm-up pleasure, he slid down the bed, draped her legs over his shoulders. She wanton
ly arched her hips, opening herself wide for his devouring. Her taste and scent blanketed his sanity as he lost all sense of self, becoming a beast bent on drinking his mate dry. And he did, while he suckled and tongued her to two more climaxes, his growls inhuman as he drained her overflowing pleasure.

  She lay melted beneath him, aftershocks discharging through her as he rose above her. Her hands shook as they delighted in shaping and feeling him. Though his mind was unraveling, he let her own him like he’d just owned her. But when her hands wrapped around his now-painful erection, and her tongue licked her lips, miming her intentions, he stopped her.

  Her eyes flared and subsided with that hypnotic light, her flush intensifying it. “Not fair. You had your way with me....”

  “You’ll have your way with me, whenever and however you want. Just not now. This time I need to be inside you.” Something penetrated the fog of lust wrapping his mind. “But if you’re not…”

  She shook her head against the light gray sheets that echoed her eyes and deepened the gloss of her raven hair, opening her thighs wide for him. “It’s safe. Come inside me, Jalal, just fill me, with yourself, with your pleasure.”

  “Lujayn.” He could swear he heard something snap, crumble. The last shred of restraint.

  He snatched up her silken legs, hooking her ankles around his neck, the only position where he could plumb deepest inside her, where she almost accommodated him. He cupped her buttocks, mounted her, then holding her focus, groaning her name, he thrust inside her, felt as if he’d plunged into a vise of pure, molten pleasure.

  Her scream echoed his roar as her hot flesh stretched for his invasion, her back arched, her whole body trembling like a strummed string with the shock of pain and pleasure. He withdrew, plunged again, seeking to breach her completely as he knew she needed him to, sensation slashing through him. Another sharp keen squeezed out of her depths as she smashed herself against him, seeking his full domination. He gave it to her, forging deeper with every thrust. She orgasmed over and over, shrieks shredding her voice, convulsions racking her whole body beneath his and her inner muscles around his girth.

  He waited until pleasure was electrifying her in a continuous current, squeezing him beyond insanity, then erupted in his own release, his buttocks contracting into her cradle, his erection buried to the hilt inside her quivering flesh. He held himself at her womb as his seed seared through his length in jet after jet of excruciating pleasure.

  Somewhere in his brain thoughts floated among the lethargy of satisfaction. The last time they’d had such profound fulfillment in each other, a life had been created, their son. And if it wasn’t safe as she thought, this time another miracle might happen, another son, or better still a daughter....

  He lurched back into the present, found himself spread beneath the warm, satiated embodiment of all his desires.

  His heart contracted with remembrance. The last time this had happened, she’d broken away from him, her eyes cold and reviling. He couldn’t survive it this time if she…

  She purred something, a sound of total satisfaction, secured him in a more intimate embrace. Everything inside him fell apart in relief, in thankfulness, as he luxuriated in gliding his hands over her lushness, grinding his unabated arousal against that belly that had borne him his son. She turned her face up at him, opened for him as their mouths mated again and again.

  As she dived back into his hold, his gaze fell on the wall clock. It was 1:00 a.m.

  Uzeem. Great. By the time he had her in any shape that didn’t say “savagely pleasured female,” it might be dawn. He couldn’t return her to her family looking like that, eyes barely open, mouth swollen, skin flushed with simmering lust.

  He sighed, deciding this was too incredible to waste any of it worrying. He’d somehow iron this out with her family. For now, he’d savor each breath and nuance of this reunion. This revival.

  He hugged her tighter, arms and legs. She sighed in bone-deep bliss, melted deeper into his full-body embrace.

  He sighed again, brought up the only other thing he had on his mind anymore. “I want to see Adam tomorrow. Make that today.”

  She raised a wobbling head, her blissful expression receding, resurging tension clamping her every muscle. “I can’t, Jalal.”

  He stiffened, didn’t stop her when she struggled to sit up.

  Her eyes pleaded as she looked at him. “I’m not contesting your right to see Adam. But I won’t turn my family’s life upside down while I’m here. It will be difficult enough to explain away tonight.”

  Unable to bear her agitation, wanting only to alleviate her worries, he brought her back to him in a searing kiss, whispered against her lips, “Then you bring him to me.”

  Nine

  “Do you realize how huge this is?”

  Lujayn winced at the nerve-fraying excitement in her younger sister’s exclamation.

  She ignored her as she tried to talk Adam out of wriggling down from her arms to run up the cut-stone path toward Jalal’s villa on his own.

  Dahab pounced on Adam, took him from her, distracting him with whooping tickles. Adam shrieked, delighted with his favorite playmate’s antics. It made Lujayn realize again that while she was the one he reached for in almost everything, he never laughed with her as wholeheartedly. She hadn’t been as playful with her son as she should have been. She’d let the circumstances of his birth dim her spirits, though she’d been determined not to. Seemed in spite of her best intentions and efforts, she had shortchanged him.

  Now she was entering a new level of turmoil, with Jalal invading her life on all frontiers…as he’d invaded her last night....

  God, what he’d done to her! She’d been in a state of molten agony ever since. She’d thought she’d remembered in distressing detail the pleasure he’d wrung from her, had even exaggerated it. Turned out she’d downplayed it. Had he always been this…?

  “Huge! As in humongous!” Dahab exclaimed again, securing Adam on her hip. “You and Prince Overwhelming himself! Man, is this going to blow millions of hopeful females’ dreams to smithereens when they know he’s taken!”

  Biting back a retort that he wasn’t, so those millions could still hope, she kept her tone sweet for Adam’s benefit. “Dahab—shut up. You’re making me sorrier by the second that I told you.”

  Her impish sister stuck out her tongue at her. Adam followed suit, then burst into giggles again. Lujayn groaned. Dahab might be a fun companion for Adam, but she was no role model. Anyone would think she was twelve not twenty-two.

  “First, you had to tell me. You needed me as a decoy because otherwise everyone would have wondered why you’re taking Adam out when you’ve been leaving him with me for weeks. Second, you should be sorry indeed. How could you keep it from me—me—that Adam is Prince Jalal’s?” Dahab swung up Adam. “No wonder you’re the most gorgeous boy on earth. You take after your father.”

  Lujayn grimaced. Great. Even her own sister was infatuated with Jalal. But then, what female with a pulse wouldn’t be?

  But he’d taken her last night as if he’d been suffocating and she’d been air. Or maybe she’d reflected her feelings on him…

  “I mean, I understand not telling Mom and the rest of the Al—oops, Aal Ghamdi clan, what with their fourteenth-century brains. But me?” Dahab squinted at Adam. “Can you believe it, you edible tyke? She didn’t tell me!”

  “I’m still wondering how you lived your formative years here and didn’t develop the basic persona. But you did develop the modern me, me, me one, didn’t you?” Lujayn smirked as she slowed down more, loath to reach their destination.

  She didn’t know how she’d face Jalal again, what his reaction would be to Adam and Adam’s to him. She’d brought Dahab to defuse the situation with her lighthearted vivaciousness.

  “Actually, I’m all about you, you—” Dahab squeezed Adam “—and him, right now.”

  Lujayn gave her a warning/pleading look. “Speaking of him, you will attempt not to voice every
thought and question that flits in your mind, right?”

  Dahab feigned indignation. “Hey, I’m not that bad!” Then she wiggled her eyebrows. “But don’t worry. I’m here to take a close-up look at the Prince of Many Gorgeousnesses and witness this historic meeting between father and son, but I won’t stay. Got a hot date at two.”

  Great. So she’d get the disadvantage of her unpredictability without the advantage of her presence.

  For the rest of the way, Lujayn looked around the grounds she’d barely noticed last night. Without Jalal’s presence blinding her, she realized the place was like a mini-oasis. Teeming palm trees surrounded the periphery. Beyond that, the grounds were landscaped in mini-dunes and lawns with breathtaking beds of desert plants in the shadow of more palm trees of all shapes. A huge crescent-shaped ein—spring sparkled emerald and curved around the central two-level sprawling residence crouching on the most elevated dune and overlooking the desert that stretched into the horizon. The villa itself was a masterpiece in modern elegance and exotic design with an amalgam of Arab, Ottoman and Persian influences.

  And as per Jalal’s promise, the place was deserted, to assure their privacy. At some point up the winding path to the veranda where she’d entered the villa last night, Adam threw himself into her arms again in order to point things out, curious to know everything.

  She was explaining about the ein, and debating with Dahab whether it was natural or artificial when suddenly nothing was left, in her mind, in the world.

  Jalal was striding across the veranda eagerly. She was grateful for Dahab’s presence when the sight of her slowed him down. But it was only seconds before they reached him where he stood at the top of the stairs, the intensity in his eyes almost evaporating her, even when it was, for once, not directed to her.

  All his being was focused on Adam.