Grateful for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 16)

by Annabelle Winters

  “Are those the results?” she said, her frown cutting deeper as she saw the Sheikh’s tight half-smile, caught the faraway look in his eye, noticed the way his fists were clenched like he was being racked by conflicting emotions as well: vulnerability and doubt mixed with a feeling of delight, joy, and excitement. “May I?”

  The Sheikh grunted, uncrossing his legs and placing one big bare foot on top of the papers. Pen saw the color rush to his face, and she leaned over and firmly tugged at the sheaf of papers.

  “Gimme it,” she said, feeling that current of playfulness that had run through all the interactions with the Sheikh, no matter how serious. But Rafeez shook his head and placed another bare foot on the papers, and so Pen just shrugged, grabbed his ankle, and began to tickle the soles of those big brown feet.

  The Sheikh roared with laughter, kicking out at her instinctively. The movement was just enough for Pen to slide the papers out from under his feet, and she screamed in triumph, holding them up as the Sheikh leaned forward and tried to swipe them from her hand.

  She looked at the papers and squinted. Then she glanced at the Sheikh, noticing how the color had rushed to his face again, his green eyes narrowing, fists clenching like he was suddenly nervous, scared, vulnerable even though he was still smiling.

  “I don’t understand,” she said softly, her voice catching in her throat as she stared at the results.

  “That is because advanced genetics is probably beyond the comprehension of an American farmgirl,” said Rafeez, taking advantage of her shock and snatching the papers from her hand.

  “Oh, and an Arabian ape with gigantic, hairy feet understands it all, I suppose. What the hell, Rafeez? What’s going on?”

  The Sheikh swung his gigantic, hairy feet off the teakwood table and stood. He held the papers out in front of him, his green eyes narrowed and focused. “Here is what’s going on. Here is the interpretation of these results. Here is your answer.”

  Then he ripped the papers to shreds, letting the white scraps fall to the red carpet like snowflakes in a North Dakota storm.

  Pen stared as a feeling of surrealness washed over her, like she was imagining it all, imagining this Palace, imagining him. But she knew it was real, and she knew what he was saying, what he meant: He was saying the results meant nothing. He’d already decided that these were his children, that she was his woman, that they were going to be a family. It didn’t matter if he was obligated to care for those children by the bonds of blood. He was saying he was choosing to care for them because of the bonds of love.

  Love for her.

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Pen whispered, blinking as she watched the white pieces of paper drift to the carpet, swirl in the breeze, scatter across the room like confetti.

  “What do you think I am saying?” Rafeez said, smiling as he took a step toward her.

  “You say it first.”

  “I have already said what I need to say. The rest is in the doing.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense,” giggled Pen, blinking as she saw the front of the Sheikh’s silk pajamas begin to rise. “And no, this isn’t happening. My children are in the next room!”

  “The walls are thick, my queen,” the Sheikh grunted, pulling on the drawstring of his pajamas. “They will not hear you scream.”

  “You’re sick!” Pen said, gasping as the Sheikh dropped his pajamas to reveal his cock filled out and hard, its upward curve beckoning to her like a finger saying “Come hither, woman.”

  “You know what they say about men with gigantic, hairy feet,” the Sheikh grunted, stroking himself shamelessly as he strode up to her and placed his hands on her sides. He caressed her hips, pulled her gown up over her head, pinched her breasts hard through her bra until she squealed with pleasure.

  “What about your vow to never have children?” Pen whispered as she watched him pull her bra off and then moaned as he shoved his mighty paws down the back of her panties, grabbing her ass with such force she almost choked.

  “Well, I said I would give up the throne when I turn fifty-right, so we have a couple of decades to figure it out,” Rafeez grunted as he pulled down her underwear in one swift motion. “Perhaps we will keep all our children a secret. Give them fake names, make them wear disguises in public, deny their existence when questioned by the media. Perhaps we will cut them out of my will, banish them to exile if they show any ambition to sit upon the throne.” He paused, going down on his knees and steadying her so she could step out of her rolled-up panties. Then he turned her around and kissed her rear, reaching around to her front and rubbing her mound roughly as she leaned back into him. “Or perhaps I will only take you in the arse for the next twenty years.”

  Pen shrieked in mock horror as she felt Rafeez spread her rear globes and tease her hole with his tongue. “You’re sick!” she said as she felt the wetness flow through her matted pubic curls and into the Sheikh’s thick fingers. “And I’m sick for allowing you to have your way with me.”

  “Let us make one thing clear,” the Sheikh said, standing up and pressing the head of his cock to her rear. “This is my kingdom, my Palace, and you are my queen. There is no question of permission or being allowed to have my way with you.”

  He pushed into her just as he said the words, and Pen’s eyes rolled up in her head as she felt him slide in, nothing but his natural lubricant smoothing the way into her anus. At the same time he pushed three fingers into her pussy and curled them up against the front wall of her vagina, bringing forth an orgasm that was so sudden and explosive that Pen felt her own wetness shoot out all over the Sheikh’s hand.

  “Oh, God, what are you doing to me?!” she groaned as she felt him drive into both her holes at once. She was powerless in his grasp, and she almost choked as Rafeez brought his free hand up along her body, pinching her breasts, rubbing her throat, and finally shoving his middle finger into her mouth as he pumped harder into her ass.

  Pen sucked on his finger with everything she had, the sensation of being filled in all three holes so overwhelming she wasn’t sure if she was crying or laughing. It was all the same suddenly, joy and sadness, fear and madness, life and death even . . . that place where all emotions were raw and nameless, where physical pleasure and spiritual ecstasy were indistinguishable.

  She came again as she felt him explode in her ass, and for a moment she thought she was flowing from everywhere: Her saliva from the way she was sucking his finger, the wetness his fingers were bringing forth from her vagina, and the overflow from her rear as the Sheikh emptied his massive balls into her with frenzied, manic jerks that made every ounce of her flesh shiver and shake.

  When he was done he pulled out of her, sliding his wet hands around her naked waist and dragging her over to an oversized day-bed that faced the open balcony. He tossed her down onto the soft mattress like she was a rag-doll, draping himself over her and kissing her bare shoulders and back as she shuddered from the aftermath of what he’d just done to her.

  “Twenty years of that?” she murmured. “Oh, the burdens of being queen!”

  “Actually it will be a lifetime of that,” grunted the Sheikh. “But yes, just twenty or so years of being queen.”

  “What if I don’t want to give up my crown in twenty years?” Pen whispered, giggling as she felt the Sheikh press up against her. “What if I hatch a conspiracy with my children to assassinate you when you’re fifty-seven and seize power one year before Zahaar becomes a democracy?”

  “Well, perhaps I will imprison you and all our children when I turn fifty-six, just to make sure nothing interrupts my noble plans.”

  “So then you’ll visit me in the dungeons every night?” Pen whispered. “Feed me bread and water through the metal bars? Sounds romantic.”

  “Oh, it will be romantic, I assure you,” the Sheikh said, laughing. “Especially when I spank your fifty-year old bottom
for daring to oppose me.”

  “I doubt your gorilla-sized cock will still get hard at the sight of my wrinkled old butt in twenty years,” Pen said, smiling and closing her eyes as she basked in images of the two of them spending a lifetime together.

  “I will Botox your arse so it is smooth like a French teenager’s,” grunted the Sheikh, reaching between them and rubbing her rear.

  Pen shrieked out loud. “OK, thanks for ruining the moment, you sick asshole!”

  The Sheikh laughed, and Pen pushed back against him as she fought back tears of happiness. A part of her still felt some guilt that she was the cause of him going back on his vow to never have children. But then she realized that he wasn’t going back on his word. He was making a compromise. He was issuing a challenge. He was saying that they’d have to find a way through this together, as a married couple, as man and woman, husband and wife . . . and most importantly as parents! How would they raise their children—both adopted and natural—to share the same values they’d chosen, to take a broader view of their responsibilities, their privileges, their gifts?

  Pen felt a shiver go through her when she realized the road wasn’t going to be easy. There’d be moments of doubt for them both. Hell, there was probably doubt in his mind right now! But he’d made a choice the moment he’d decided that the results of those DNA tests were irrelevant, that his heart was going to choose, that his heart had already chosen. Chosen her. Penelope Peterson. Her, and whatever came with her.

  “All right,” Pen said finally. “We should probably get back to the kids, yeah?”

  “Yes,” said the Sheikh without a moment’s hesitation. “Let them know that I am Daddy, Father, and God-King to them from this moment forth.”

  Pen raised an eyebrow and also her left hand, sticking out her ring finger. “Um, not yet, Ape-man. Maybe in the animal kingdom you claim your mate with your cock. But in the human world you need to put a ring on it.”

  “We shall see,” said Rafeez, slowly untangling himself from her and standing up.

  “Excuse me? What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means what it means.”

  Pen blinked as she wondered if the Sheikh was already having doubts about what he’d said. Then she wondered if it was her own insecurities that were making her think that he had doubts. And finally she shook her head and took a deep breath and reminded herself to calm the hell down and have some faith. Faith in herself. Faith in him. And faith in Willow, who’d put them together.

  Then suddenly reality butted in and Pen glanced up at the Sheikh, tall, brown and naked in the sun. She thought of Willow, killed in a car crash. She pictured Randy, drowned in a bathtub. She saw an image of Charlotte Goodwin, calmly asking that Pen hand over the twins to her. This wasn’t over. Hell no, it wasn’t over.

  28

  “Stay over there,” the Sheikh commanded, stopping in the doorway and holding his arm up so Pen wouldn’t enter. “I said stay!”

  “I’m not a dog!” Pen answered hotly, but she obeyed him, stopping a few feet behind the Sheikh. “What’s going on? Are the children OK?”

  “They are fine,” the Sheikh said, hesitating as he surveyed the room. He could feel the dread rise up in him, but he knew he had to stay calm. If whoever did this had wanted to harm the twins, the children would already be dead. In fact they would have been dead in the car crash that killed Willow, or drowned in the bathtub along with Randy. The children were not in danger. But perhaps everyone else was.

  The Sheikh closed his eyes and muttered a silent prayer as he took in the sight of his two attendants sprawled on the carpet. The walls were indeed thick—so thick that neither Rafeez nor Pen had heard a thing. Not that they were paying attention, Rafeez thought. But regardless, the Sheikh decided as he glanced at the open balcony and then at the blood that was obscured by the red carpet: The gunshots would not have be heard. These were shots taken from far away. One shot for each target.

  “What the hell?!” Pen screamed, and she pushed past the Sheikh and ran to the twins, pulling them both into her bosom and holding them close. They hugged her back, but they both seemed strangely calm, the Sheikh thought. Yes, they would not have heard the gunshots, and given that the attendants were probably just standing silently in the background watching the kids play, the children might barely have noticed anything was wrong at first. Still, it seemed unusual to say the least.

  “Stay calm,” the Sheikh said, frowning as his mind raced. Clearly this was a message. Someone was saying they could get to these children—and to whoever was protecting the children—at any time, in any place. Perhaps that was the message with Willow’s death. The same with Randy. And now that it was the two of them as the sole guardians . . .

  Suddenly Rafeez’s eyes went wide as he glanced toward the open balcony. Ya Allah, what was he thinking! How could he be so stupid?!

  “Get down!” he roared, leaping at Pen and the twins, shoving them out of the way as a silent bullet thudded its way into the carpet. It took a moment for him to hear the distant sound of the gunshot, which told him the sniper was far away, perhaps on the rooftop of one of the high-rises hotels in the city center.

  “What the fuck?!” Pen screamed, pulling the twins towards the door as she crawled along with them. “This can’t be happening!”

  “It is happening. But we are not in the line of fire now,” said Rafeez, crouching down in front of Pen and the twins. In front of his family. “Still, we are not safe here.”

  “What do you mean we aren’t safe here? This is a goddamn palace! There are walls, gates, and armed guards, right? How can we not be safe here?!”

  “What I mean is it is not safe for anyone else here. Not as long as we are here.” He glanced over at his slain attendants and then up at Pen, searching her panicked expression to see if she understood, if she would rise up, be strong for what he was going to suggest they do. “Pen, the children are not in danger. Whoever is doing this wants them alive, or else they would already be dead. It is the people around them who are in danger. I cannot put my people at risk like this.” He took a breath and tightened his jaw. “I will take the children and leave the Palace in clear sight. Alone. I will draw them out, lead them to a place where I have the advantage. And then I will finish it.”

  Pen’s eyes widened as her mouth opened like she wasn’t sure what to say. Then she closed her eyes and shook her head. “You’re insane. What the hell are you talking about? You’re just going to get yourself killed, and I’ll never see you or my kids again. No way. Absolutely not.”

  “So what do you suggest? We hide out in a safe-room with no windows, eating camel-jerky and sipping stale water for the rest of our lives while some unknown party wants us dead so they can steal our children?”

  Pen snorted, her eyes wide with disbelief. “It’s not an unknown party! It’s that blonde witch Charlotte! It has to be! She’s been after these kids from day one! So just send your people to her goddamn office in Fargo and have her brought here! Or better still, just have them put two bullets in her freakin’ head for what she did to Willow and Randy! And your attendants!”

  The Sheikh smiled as he saw the anger rise up in his woman, overcoming the panic he’d seen earlier. Good. She wasn’t going to break. She wasn’t going to cower down. His instincts about her were right. Ya Allah, what children they would have!

  Rafeez pushed aside the thought that seemed to come out of nowhere. This was no time to be fantasizing about having children with her! Not when neither of them might make it out of the room alive!

  “We do not know what role Charlotte has in all this,” the Sheikh said, blinking and focusing back on the matter at hand. He glanced over at the twins once again. They looked calm. Shockingly calm, like being around violence was nothing new to them, like it was in their blood, part of who they were. “She is a goddamn professor in North Dakota, Pen. Regardless of what she may or not may
be capable of, she most certainly does not have the connections to engineer this kind of . . .”

  He trailed off as he took one last look at his attendants lying dead on the hand-woven carpet. Once again he glanced over at the twins. They were the connection, he realized. They were the only ones who had the connection.

  So what were the connections here?

  Colombia?

  Cartels?

  Cocaine?

  His mind travelled back to those days at Oxford when he’d first met Charlotte. She’d been a wild thing, partying every night like it was her last day on Earth. Alcohol, drugs, you name it. All of it flowed through the halls of Oxford after the sun went down, so it wasn’t just her. But it had certainly been one of the reasons the Sheikh had never considered a serious relationship with her, and he did remember more than one occasion when he’d seen her measure out a line of white powder on his coffee table and snort it like she’d done it a hundred times.

  Rafeez thought back to his dead sister and her own addictions, her own drive to snort the white powder and revel in its high. It felt like there were connections here, but he couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t get it straight in his mind. It could all be coincidence. After all, doing cocaine didn’t mean you were directly involved with Colombian drug cartels!

  But having your parents gunned down during a showdown between the Cartel and the Colombian Army might indeed mean you were involved, the Sheikh thought as he thought back to what Pen had told him about the twins’ real parents and how they’d died. The official story was that it was accidental. A lot of accidental deaths seemed to be happening around these children.

  Well, clearly things have escalated from being mere accidents, Rafeez decided as he ushered his chosen family out of the room after it had been several minutes without another bullet thudding into the walls or carpeting. We are past the point of elaborate fake accidents. This is real, and it is for keeps.