ZAHIR_Her Ruthless Sheikh

by Theodora Taylor

  Now his story is done. I take his hand and let out a long breath before saying, “So…your mom was a writer, too?”

  A reluctant smile flits across his lips. “Some poetry, but mostly short stories, only a few of which made any sense.”

  I chuff again, my small laugh soft and ironic. “We have soooo much in common.”

  Zahir laughs, too, and we look for a while longer at my mom’s wall.

  “Those two days when I left you after you asked me to stay the night? It was not meant as a punishment. I received, well, I suppose you could call it an offer from Buck Calhoun Jr., the Texas steel magnate who refused to do business with me when I met with him at Holt and Sylvie’s wedding. He, like your sister, believed my reasons for marrying you were based purely on sex. He proposed a trade. He’d sign a deal to finish my mall project and complete the increasingly necessary renovations on our oil lines, if I would fly you to Texas for one night with him and his wife.”

  “Jolene,” I supply, remembering the Texan and our strange conversation at the airport. “She’s a big fan.”

  Zahir’s eyebrows raise in wry bemusement. “Yes, as I discovered. However…” The amusement fades from his expression. “I declined the offer. Everything is riding on me proving myself during this first year as king. Finishing the Kingdom Mall and updating the oil lines would convince my people that I’m a worthy successor to my father. But I did not accept his offer. I could not even consider sharing you with another, woman or man. Even for a night. So you see, though I can only have you for six months, I am incapable of doing to you what your father did to your mother and the twins’ mother. You must understand I did not stay away because of what you asked me, I stayed away to see if I could do it at all. Forty-eight hours is as far as I got, and in truth, I would have found an excuse to bring you with me to Asia. It was just a matter of spinning it to myself.”

  He looks stricken, and I shake my head because, “Do you think I want to be with someone who would pass me around like that? I’m still not clear what happened in Jahwar, but I do have enough basic psychology skills to realize something in me responds to something in you.”

  Zahir shakes his head. “Even when I tried to get a hold of myself, I could not be like Asir for you—”

  I cut him off. “Asir? He’s what I thought I would like when I was young and wanted everything to be the opposite of how I grew up. But you—you make me feel safe and protected. You take away the out of control feeling I’ve been carrying around all my life. And for reasons that may only belong to me, I like that you keep me only for you. That you cover me up and don’t want other men to touch me. It’s fucked up—and I would never recommend a relationship like that for most women or the twins, but for us…”

  I peep up at him while making myself vulnerable to a man for the very first time. “It works. We get each other, and I may not know what a healthy relationship looks like, but when I said no the first time we met, I was saying no to doing that with Asir, not with you. He didn’t have my consent, but you…you do.”

  He looks down at me, his eyes so full of emotion, it makes him look like a completely different person, and then he lets out a long, shuddering breath. “My father raised me to be the king of a desert land, and I lived in fear of nothing for a very long time. But this scares me, habibti. This marriage…how quickly it has become an obsession. Especially when I know my extended family and my kingdom will not allow me to have you for more than the allotted six months and remain king...”

  I nod in understanding, recalling Asir’s visit and his explanation to me of the thin ice that kept him from returning my feelings, even though he’d like to remain friends.

  “I get it,” I say quietly. “Your people would never accept me.”

  He shakes his head sadly. “Unfortunately, American teenagers are not the only ones with a narrow world view. In truth, I have thought long and hard about keeping you beyond the six months as a consort. But after what Darius Ross told me about your past, I realized I could never ask you to share me with another, even if only for political reasons.”

  I nod my head in agreement, secretly glad he took that option off the table. Because I could maybe tolerate it at first. But after a while, I know being in an even partially open relationship, like my parents were, would eat away at me. “So, we’re married for now,” I summarize, looking away. “And only for now.”

  He touches my cheek, turning me to face him so I can see the tender look in his eyes as he says, “Now is all we have, but now is where we are. I wish to enjoy it. As long as I have with you, I would like to be with you. Not as an agreement on paper, but as a true husband and wife, at least until our time must come to an end. Tell me, habibti, would you like that, too?”

  I look up at him, my eyes shining with my answer. This is crazy, and it comes with an expiration date, but Zahir is right. Now is all we have…now is where we are…

  “Yeah…” I whisper. “Yeah, I’d like that, too.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Now, as it turns out, is pretty damn great.

  I change my mind about preserving my mother’s room. And over the course of a week of after-school meetings with Johnny, Sasha and I decide the wall between the master suite and my mother’s room will be torn down to make a music library where the twins can listen to music and study. Because as it turns out, they’ll be going to college after all.

  Sasha had only expressed mild interest in community college as a fallback before I disappeared for my six-month marriage sentence. Kasha refused to consider it at all. Hugs and Cuddles had already agreed to extend her hours upon graduation, why go to college when she already knew music was what she wanted to do with her life? I also suspect seeing me struggle to finish my law degree and raise them while also working as Amber’s legal secretary soured them on higher education.

  But after no more than three conversations over dinner in Zahir’s suite, the twins change their plans. They decide their temporary brother-in-law is right. If they’re serious about music or any career in the arts, they need a solid business and marketing background to ensure financial success.

  It’s too late to apply to any of the colleges with a strong business and marketing program, but surprise-surprise…the girls’ overly indulgent brother-in-law shows up to dinner with acceptance letters from Manhattan University only a couple of days after they announce their change of heart. Now the girls can go to one of the top universities in the country...providing, of course, that they earn a certain score on their SATs. Every day after school, the twins join me in our suite where they study with an SAT tutor Zahir’s secretary found for them, and I half-heartedly study for my bar exam.

  “You should refocus your efforts while you’re here,” Zahir says to me over lunch in his room one afternoon. “I do not watch television as a habit, but I did catch one or two episodes of your show. You wrote a few of the songs Asir produced, did you not?”

  “I mean, yeah, I used to write during my hip-hip princess phase, but not anymore. And did you seriously watch the show?” I ask, because it’s a straight-up struggle to conjure a mental image of him watching TV, much less watching my old over-the-top reality show.

  “Yes,” he answers with a somewhat distasteful twist of his mouth. “The episode where you and Asir produced a song for charity was the only episode I enjoyed.”

  Wow…burn, but then he finishes with, “Perhaps, you should try writing again if only to help the twins with their upcoming demo. We’re only here until Ramadan, so it would only mean be taking a couple of weeks off from your studies.”

  The following day, I tentatively switch priorities—just for the remaining two weeks that we’re here. I open a new notebook and begin jotting down a few of the lyrics I’ve been keeping trapped behind a wall of resolve ever since my father died. But the sputter of lyrics soon becomes a fount. And as it turns out, two hours of SAT practice is an amazing warm-up focus exercise for the twins.

  We fall into an easy routine. I write
in the mornings, and then study while the twins receive coaching for their SATs. After the tutor leaves, we pull out Sasha’s keyboard and let the music flow until it’s time to join Zahir for dinner.

  Life feels good again. In fact, it feels better than good. The change of location, the inspiring views outside our windows, the clarification of goals, and time like we’ve never had together with the twins’ busy performance schedule and my work and studies. Before my two weeks is up, and by the time the house is completed in June, the girls and I have two songs prepared and ready to go for the at-home recording studio.

  “Iyanla Vanzant called and said she wants her job back,” Sasha says to Zahir over our nightly dinner ritual.

  “Because you are up in here fixing everybody’s life,” Kasha finishes.

  Of course, Zahir doesn’t get it. But the twins fall out laughing at their own joke. And though I try to hold back, I can’t contain it when Kasha adds, “Pew! Pew! Pew!”

  The three of us laugh until we have tears in our eyes. And then even harder when Sasha pulls it together long enough to intone, “But he didn’t shoot him.”

  Zahir continues to eat his New York strip steak and shakes his head as if he suspects it will take him longer than two weeks to figure the three of us out. And maybe that’s why he announces during our next dinner that he won’t be returning to Jahwar for Ramadan as previously planned.

  “Isn’t that kind of a bad look for, like, the king not to show up for Ramadan?” Sasha asks.

  “It is not the best look, no,” he answers, throwing Sasha a bemused half-smile. “But it is not necessarily the worst thing ever. I have many cousins and other family members to serve in my stead and of course, I will observe Ramadan here. Besides, not much business is done during this time of year in Jahwar. That means my efforts will be more productive in the States.”

  Zahir reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. I squeeze back, even though I sense part of his reason for not going back home during Ramadan has something to do with him not having a Muslim wife. At least for now.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Would it have been easier for you if I’d converted when we got married? Like, temporarily?” I ask while we’re getting undressed that night.

  No more games these days. Ever since the morning we agreed that now was where we are, we have been sleeping in the same bed.

  He grumble-laughs and says, “That is not the way my religion works, and though I am obviously not the most traditional Muslim, I would not want you to convert unless you sincerely wished to take Allah in your heart.” He regards me after he’s done taking off the last of his clothes. “Tell me, Prin. Do you truly wish to become religious now as an antidote to your upbringing?”

  I consider his question and decide I do not. Between the Jahwar restrictions on women and the reportedly judgmental Christianity of my grandmother and the twin-rejecting Orthodox Judaism of their mother’s family, I can’t see me embracing any organized religion for myself. But… “It feels like I’m making everything harder for you. First the kiss, and then skipping the trip to Asia, and now you won’t be going home for Ramadan.”

  “I was raised to be the king of a nation with many riches and many enemies. Life was never meant to be easy for me, and besides…”

  He comes around the bed and turns me toward the room’s standing cheval mirror so he can watch as he peels off today’s sweater dress before going to work on my bra. “You make me happy, habibti. And happy feels better than easy,” he says, freeing my breasts. “Did you change your hair?”

  “Yeah, much like you’re the changing subject,” I answer dryly, but my head soon falls back, and I let out a little sigh as I watch him massage my breasts.

  “We should enjoy ourselves now before Ramadan starts in two days,” he tells me, lazily playing with my pussy as he says, “I will not be able to eat, drink, or do this during daylight hours. And I have become used to reveling in you before breakfast. For this reason, I will most certainly be grumpy and while the hunger is manageable, it is not advisable for me to over exert myself during this time.”

  “Mmm, now is where we are…” I say, leaning into the lips speaking into my neck as my hips move against his hand below.

  “Now is where we are,” he confirms, nuzzling the side of my face with his beard.

  “Maybe I’ll tie you down for once,” I tease. “Take advantage of you at night when you’re weak with hunger.”

  His hand stills inside my panties and his body tightens. A lot has happened since we had that Cal-Mart talk in my mother’s room. And while we’ve been having good sex every night, it’s been very vanilla. As if we are giving the psychological wounds we ripped open some time to heal.

  But tonight, I am feeling healed. And if the way his dick suddenly rises against my back is any indicator, he is, too.

  “Hmm…” I say, circling my hips in the mirror since his fingers are no longer moving. “Yeah, I think I’ll dominate you for the next month. Wake you in the middle of the night and sit on your face and make you lick me until I—”

  I cut off when his hand suddenly pulls out of my underwear and fists in my new Remy hair.

  That night he punishes me for my audacious suggestion. He binds me with two of his ties to the bed posts and then holds down my legs as he forces me to take his tongue. I fight him like I always do. For some reason, I think I’ll be stronger in America, maybe even be able to buck him off. But his raw power wins out, like it always does.

  He holds me down with his biceps barely straining and introduces a new kind of torture with his expert tongue. But just as I am so close to coming, he stops. “Say you’ll be good and follow my commands for the rest of our trip. Even in America you belong to me.”

  “Fuck you,” I whisper. Once…then again when he gets me all revved up a second time only to stop.

  “Do you wish to have one of those finger food orgasms?” he asks, reaching for the drawer as he watches me writhe. “If you do not give me your promise, then I will only do this again and this time when I stop, your body will keep going and cause you to come without anything inside of you. It will only give you a small, unsatisfying taste of what you could have. But if you tell me you’ll be good, I will make you come at least three times. And since I am no longer scheduled to fly out tomorrow, I will use this unexpected free day to refresh your training.”

  The idea of spending the whole day with him makes me pulse with a piercing ache that almost feels like pain.

  “What will it be, Prin?” he asks, closing the drawer. “And mind you, once you come, this offer comes off the table.”

  Wordplay. I almost laugh but stop when I hear a familiar whirring…

  My eyes widen when I see the vibrator, a friggin’ Magic Wand just like the one I keep in my drawer at home.

  “I believe this was the brand you specifically requested from Holt, was it not?” he asks.

  And then he applies it to my hardened nipples. I buck, and nearly lose the battle not to come with that one touch.

  “Okay, I’ll be good! I’ll be good!” I cry out.

  The whirring clicks off, and Zahir’s back at the bottom of the bed, prying open my legs. “You’ll be good?” he asks, his breath tickling my vagina. My clit is so engorged, I can see it peeking up between my lower lips.

  “I’ll be good! I’ll be good!” I cry again, trying not to come at just the sensation of his breath on the straining bundle of nerves between my pussy lips.

  Then he takes the bundle in his mouth, suckling it whole, and I scream, coming so hard I can feel myself squirting into his mouth.

  By the time Ramadan comes around, I’m beginning to understand why festivals like Mardi Gras are a thing. For the next twenty-four hours it is an out-and-out dirty sex bacchanalia. Without leaving the bedroom, we return to my suite in Jahwar. Zahir feeds me. And Zahir punishes me. He is my boundary. He is my control. And I find I can’t stop breaking my promise to be good over and over again, until I suddenly “wake up
” in the bathroom’s marble-incased tub with a wash cloth running over my body.

  “Sub-space?” I ask Zahir, who is sitting behind me in the tub while he gives me a bath.

  “Sub-space,” he confirms. “However, sunset is almost here. After this bath, we must eat dinner and then the time for being good really has come. But, Prin?”

  “Hmm?” I ask, reaching my hand up to enjoy the feel of his beard.

  “Thank you for allowing me to be with you like this one last time before I begin my Holy month.”

  One last time…

  Those three words will come to haunt me in the months to come.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I promised to be good, but just six hours after going to bed, I whisper, “Zahir, wake up.”

  “What is going on?” he asks, glancing at the clock which reads 4:00 AM.

  “We have to go to the twins' room,” I say, glad that he put on a full set of pajamas before giving me a chaste kiss good night.

  “Are they okay?” he asks, his voice beginning to sound alarmed.

  “No, they need you over there,” I answer, tugging on his hand.

  Zahir enters our suite for the first time, thinking something’s wrong…and stops short when he sees the twins at a candle-lit table with a breakfast of fresh fruit, breads, cheese, and oatmeal already set out along with halal meats, fattoush—a kind of salad made with vegetables and pita bread—and fava beans, which, despite the Hannibal Lecter association, I’d come to love while living in Jahwar.

  “Happy Ramadan!” Kasha cheers like it’s Christmas morning.

  But if Zahir is offended it doesn’t show. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen his face this open before. “You did this? You did this for me?” he says, looking genuinely touched and surprised as he comes to stand over the table.

  “Well, the mom of one the girls Kasha works with at Hugs and Cuddles did this…” Sasha answers. “All we did was heat it up this morning and order some room service.”