Emily was lost for words, taking in one image after the other. A canopy bed, hung with a shimmering fabric that moved gently in the breeze coming from a set of double doors that opened onto a private balcony. The room was massive, and to one side she could see a gleaming bathroom, marble for miles. Instinctively she kicked off her shoes before she could take another step on the plush carpet. Her barn shoes. What was she thinking?
“If you need anything,” Zaman said from a desk that looked to be a delicate antique, all blonde wood and curves, “there’s a list of extensions. Any time of day or night. If you want to order something specific for breakfast, you only need to pick up the phone.” He patted the handset. Then he crossed the room with confident strides, pausing at her side. “Seven o’clock.”
“Seven o’clock for what?”
His grin said something dirty and fun, but his mouth said, “Dinner.”
“Right,” said Emily. “Right.” Thank God he couldn’t read her mind.
Zaman winked at her. “Take your time getting ready.”
Something about the way he said it made her think of a luxurious bath, of being naked under the water…of being in the shower. With him.
She opened her mouth to make a joke to that effect, the words coming to her too late—he had already gone out.
Maybe he could read her mind, after all.
4
Zaman tapped out the rest of the email he’d been working on and hit Send. And then he gave in to the urge that he’d been fighting off since the moment he sat down on the long sofa in the center of his spacious living room.
He looked Emily Baker up on the internet.
She’d been on his mind constantly since he’d seen her cooing gently to her horse—his horse—with the Kentucky sunlight caught in the tangle of her hair. The way she’d looked when he broke the news about Riah was burned into his brain. Emily had been shocked…and then fierce. Chin up. Heart-shaped lips pressed together.
And now she was here, in Qadir, working with his horses.
He’d be lying if he didn’t admit that he was attracted to her. She was funny and sweet, and, yes, good with the horses. Great with the horses.
Zaman’s search turned up several articles praising Emily for her work. More than once, buyers of her horses had said she was the reason their horses had been victorious. A bright thread of excitement wound its way from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. So she was beautiful and talented. She radiated calm, and that easy smile was going to be a balm to all the horses in the stables.
And the people, too.
Zaman rubbed a hand over his chin and switched off his tablet. The thing about her blushing softness was that it made him want to see her undone, wild and free.
If he wanted that, he was going to have to coax it out of her.
He only had six months to get to know her in every way he wanted to.
He’d start with dinner.
A knock at the door broke him out of a train of thought that had quickly become a naughty daydream. He found Emily standing in the hall in a blue dress that spilled over her curves with such delicate perfection that it almost swept his feet out from under him. His pulse heated in his veins. “You look lovely.”
A pink like the sunrise lit up her cheeks. “It’s all thanks to Makayla.”
A delighted surprise jolted through him at the thought of Emily seeking out his sister-in-law, Baqir’s wife, but it was quickly chased down by a cold breath of worry. “How did you find my sister-in-law?”
He welcomed her in and closed the door behind them.
“I realized I didn’t have anything other than my work clothes, because we packed and left so quickly. You’d mentioned their names, so I called around to those extensions until I found someone who could connect us.” Emily laughed. “It was a pretty bold move, but she was very kind. She loaned me this dress.” She twirled slowly in front of him. “How’d she do?”
“She made a fantastic choice,” he said. The dress did fit her like something out of his dreams, but there it was again—the dark cloud at the edge of his thoughts. If Emily and Makayla had spent time together, it wouldn’t be long before word of the American trainer he’d brought home with him spread to the rest of the family. It had only been one day. Zaman had thought he’d have more time to control the narrative about her presence in Qadir.
Then again, he hadn’t planned for there to be anything illicit about the narrative in the first place. Not that wanting Emily was illicit. Not that he wanted her.
No—denying it was laughable. He did want her, but something was different. He’d had fleeting attractions to many women in the past, but this seemed…deeper, somehow.
Emily was busy looking around the spacious living room, eyes narrowed. “Zaman, are these your private quarters?”
The way private rolled off her tongue made him want to show her the more personal rooms of his apartment. “Of course,” he said with a chuckle. “Where did you think I was bringing you?”
“A meeting room,” she said immediately. “Or a palace dining room, I guess.” Her blue eyes filled with caution. “Somewhere we could talk business.”
He felt an invisible lightning bolt in the air between them, hovering in that empty space, waiting to arc from his body to hers. “We can talk business here,” he said mildly. “Without interruption.”
She took in a sharp little breath, looking away, and Zaman seized the moment. He put his hand on her elbow, drawing her ocean-blue gaze back to his. He couldn’t help but revel in the way it made him feel to touch her—to look down into her eyes. But he didn’t let himself stretch out the moment. “Our dinner awaits,” he said with a gallant flourish, and led her into the next room. It was a formal dining room, big enough to host a party of ten or twelve, but he’d had a smaller table for two set up next to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The last tendrils of the sunset painted the sky outside in deep reds and oranges, making everything seem supersaturated with color and emotion.
He had to keep his emotions in check.
They sat at the table, and a uniformed waiter came out from the kitchen to serve the meal.
“Oh, it smells so good.” Emily’s eyes fluttered closed as she breathed in the aroma of chicken in a pomegranate sauce. The sweet scent made her mouth water. Zaman’s hands ached from holding back his desire to run the pad of his thumb over the smooth hollow of her neck. She opened her eyes again, catching him looking, and smiled. “You have such a serious look on your face. Care to share your thoughts?”
“I’m hoping you’re enjoying your time here.”
Despite her flirty tone, she sat up ramrod straight. “I am,” she said tentatively. “I’m supposed to be here for work, though, so it’s probably best not to…not to have too much fun.”
The tension sang in the air around her. Work. She was here for work. No wonder she’d expected some kind of official meeting place for dinner. It had been his own selfish need to have her to himself tonight. Zaman didn’t want to share her with anyone, and he did not want to explain his decision to put her in the guest wing of the palace instead of the staff quarters.
“You’re very good at your work,” he said, steering the conversation back to neutral ground. “Did you always want to work with horses?”
Her shoulders relaxed. “I’m not sure I ever had a choice,” she said with a low laugh. “My whole life was the farm. I fell in love young, and my parents never talked me out of it.”
Something about that called to him, and he felt his heart bend toward her. “I know what you mean, but in my case my parents did try to talk me out of it. My father used to have to drag me out of the stables to come to official events.”
“I can see that.” Emily’s eyes sparkled. “Do they have to drag you out now?”
“I wish my mother were still here to fret over it,” he said, a pang in his chest. “But she’s not. She passed away when we were teens.”
“I know what you mean,” Emily said softly. “So d
id my mother.” She took a deep breath. “She was thrown from her horse and landed head-first on a rock. She died on impact, so it’s—” She drew her bottom lip between her teeth, then released it. “Riah was bred from my mother’s favorite horse. That’s why she and the foal are so important to me. With everything that’s happened…” She paused, her fork hovering above her food. “The foal is the last thing I have of my mother that really feels like her.” Emily put her free hand on her chest.
It was like he was looking into a mirror of his own heart. “I understand,” he said simply. “I wish I’d known.”
“Oh, you couldn’t have,” she answered. “That kind of thing doesn’t come up in casual conversation.”
“Uh oh,” he said. “Does this mean we’re no longer having a casual conversation?”
“I’m not sure.” A smile flickered across her face and faded to a sultry amusement. “What’s a deep conversation like, if not this?”
“There are other secrets we could share.” He felt his attraction flare like a match being struck in his mind. “I’d like to know more of yours.”
“I don’t have any secrets.” Emily’s eyelashes fluttered down to her cheeks. “I’m a simple gal. You’ll have to tell me one of yours.”
His heart leapt at the chance to give her what she wanted. “All right. Here’s one. I brought you here because I’m competitive.”
Emily arched an eyebrow. “You don’t say.”
“I told you about the race,” he pressed on. “I didn’t tell you that I have a bet with my brother Baqir.”
“A bet.” Her eyes lit up. “Are princes allowed to bet the kingdom on a horse race?”
He laughed out loud. “Well, not the kingdom. But Baqir wouldn’t give me an ounce of glory, even if I beat him in every race from now until the end of our lives. But we did bet a…generous sum of money.”
“Well, you can’t be the one who loses that.”
“I can’t. I dislike losing, very much.”
She set her fork across the bottom of her plate. “What else would you like to win?”
The word bubbled up and sneaked past his self-control. “You.”
Emily’s eyebrows shot up. “No need to flatter me. I’ll still do my job.”
“I have no doubt of that. But…hypothetically.” He steepled his hands on the table. “What would it take to win a woman like you?”
Zaman felt her hesitate, but then something shifted in the air. “I’m not sure,” Emily said slowly. “I think you’d have to sit closer, for starters.”
“Done.” He pulled his chair around the table so he sat next to her.
“That’s better,” said Emily. “But you can’t come any closer than that.”
“And why not?” He pretended to bristle.
“Because.” She let out a nervous giggle. “This kind of flirting is way off-limits. You’re a client.”
“Don’t think of me as a client right now.”
“Right now, in this room?”
“Right now, in this palace.” She was so beautiful, her chest rising with every breath, pressing her breasts against the fabric of her dress. “I’ll be your client in the stables, if that’s what you want me to be. But here…”
“Tell me,” she said, a hitch in her breath. “What will you be inside the palace?”
“A man who can’t take his eyes off the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“That sounded nice,” she said breathlessly. He leaned in closer. “Say it again.”
“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world, and I—I’m sorry, but I can’t stop myself any longer.” He took her chin in his hand and drew her face closer to his until her breath played across his lips. “I very much want to kiss you, Emily. Would you give your permission?”
She leaned in. “I would.”
He kissed her.
He kissed her slow and soft, something at the base of his stomach unwinding with relief. He tasted her, the wine still on her tongue, exploring her like he’d explored the foothills on his very first horse—painstakingly. Deliberately. He didn’t want to miss an inch of Emily. Not a centimeter. Her tongue danced with his in a slow battle that made the breath strain in his lungs.
One moment they were in separate chairs, and the next she sat across his lap, arms thrown around his neck. The kiss deepened, a fire blazing between the two of them, and Zaman found himself raking his hands through her hair. The tug of it on his fingers—that slight resistance—turned him on beyond belief. His hardness strained at the front of his pants. He freed one hand from her hair, and Emily grabbed it, pressing his fingertips against the side of her neck.
“Here,” she demanded. “Here.”
He touched her there first, dragging the pads of his fingers down over the strap of her dress, down over her arm, down to her wrist. He turned the soft flesh upward and broke away to press a kiss to her pulse. The sounds she made trended toward animal.
Zaman pinned her eyes with his. “Come to bed with me.”
Her lips parted, breath coming fast. “I didn’t come to Qadir for sex,” she said, her voice trembling. “But I want it.”
That was all he needed to rise to his feet and take her to his bed.
5
Never in her life had Emily dreamed of this—of being carried by a prince through the dimly lit hallway of his private apartments in a sprawling palace in Qadir. Her heart thumped and turned against her rib cage, and she held tightly to Zaman’s neck, though she knew she didn’t have to. She could feel his strength radiating through his muscled arms.
If there was ever a time to take what she wanted, now was the moment. Emily had been strong-arming the farm back into working order since she’d discovered what was really happening with her dad, and it was tiring. It was soul-crushing work, repairing the damage he’d unwittingly done, rebuilding the reputation they’d once had. She and Charlotte hadn’t had the option to melt into anyone’s arms when all of it had gone down—it would have seemed weak, and if there was anything Emily had learned from her father’s illness, it was that weakness was often exploited.
But this didn’t strike her as weakness. It struck her as…confidence. She knew what she wanted, and what she wanted was for someone to carry her to bed and make her forget all the stresses of the last few years.
Not just someone. Zaman.
And she was just drunk enough on jet lag and wine and the warm, wild scent of him to forget that he was a prince and she was a farm girl from Kentucky. Or maybe it wasn’t forgetting but sinking into the knowledge of it so deeply that it no longer mattered. It just was.
Zaman laid her out on his bed and looked down at her, eyes raking over her body as tangibly as his fingers, heating her from the inside out. Then his hands were on her, and oh—she’d been wrong. Nothing was like his touch, which was gentle and strong all at once. His hands worked at her dress, sliding it down her shoulders and over her hips. He bent his head and kissed her collarbone, and then he pulled her upright to unhook her bra. His fingertips traced a path around the full curve of one breast, then the other, a low groan escaping him.
“I want to drive you wild,” he said, his voice fierce. “Wild.”
That lit up something deep in Emily’s core that had her arching toward him. “Then do it,” she said. “Don’t make me wait.”
A wicked look came into his eyes. “I think I might make you wait.”
“Don’t.” She twisted his shirt around her firsts. “Don’t do that.”
“Oh, Emily,” he said, his hand gliding around the back of her neck. “Don’t you know that you’re in my palace? I’m in charge here. And if I want to make you wait, I will.” The barely restrained tension in his voice hooked itself into the low, hot part of her belly and sent tendrils of need spiraling between her legs. A tiny part of her mind sounded a warning—this man, she could sense, would be hard to leave behind at the end of six months—but it was too late. She wanted Zaman inside her, and she wanted it now.
He ti
pped her back onto the bed and yanked her panties down, the cool air a pleasant shock as she spread her legs for him. Emily tugged at his shirt, trying to pull him up to her hips, but he kissed her hotly and pulled back with a grin. “Be patient.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
He made her watch as he stripped off his clothes, and Emily had to admit that it turned her on even more, getting to see his body emerge as he shed the suit and undershirt and finally his briefs to reveal him. And he was…something else. She’d known from the tug of his clothes that he was muscled, but Zaman was more than muscled—he was a kind of godlike perfection. Including his thick length between his legs.
“Here,” she said. “Now.”
“No.” He seemed to take considerable pleasure in telling her no, and even more pleasure in climbing onto the bed between her legs and planting a lingering kiss on the curve of her hip. Then her other hip. Then her belly button. Then he spread her legs with his big hands, and Emily dug her fists into the covers.
Zaman tasted her. Slowly. Leisurely. As if he had all the time in the world. And with every deliberate lick, pleasure twisted up with need inside of her, waiting to burst open like a thunderstorm over the hills. She arched her back, urging him to go faster.
“No,” he whispered. And he tortured her with his tongue, so slow that she had no choice but to endure the ride, holding herself down. Keeping herself under control. One swirl of his tongue followed the next like relentless waves. She felt her release winding up, getting bigger and bigger with every stroke, every lick, until she was submerged in it.
“Please, please, please.” She heard herself say the words like she was outside of her own body, but still clinging to the last shreds of herself. “Please, please, please.”
Was it a minute or a hundred years until he relented? Until he finally looked up at her from between her legs, his fingers pressing into her flesh, and said, “Hold on.”
The Sheikh’s Stubborn Employee: Qadir Sheikhs Book Three Page 3