Sheikh's Convenient Marriage

‘What shocks this particular princess is your unbelievable arrogance,’ she said quietly, ‘but I’m enjoying the story so much that I’m prepared to overlook it. Do continue.’

She saw another brief flicker of sexual excitement in his eyes, but quickly she dragged the cotton sheet up to cover her breasts. She didn’t want him seducing her into silence with his kisses.

‘I didn’t stay in the kitchens very long,’ he said. ‘I gravitated to the bar where the buzz was better and the tips were good. A big crowd of guys from a nearby advertising agency used to come in for drinks every Friday night—and they used to fascinate me.’

She stared at him. ‘Because?’

For a moment, Gabe didn’t answer because it was a long time since he’d thought about those days and those men. He remembered the ease with which they’d slipped credit cards from the pockets of their bespoke suits. He remembered their artful haircuts and the year-round tans which spoke of winter sun—at a time in his life when he’d never even had a foreign holiday.

‘I wanted to be like them,’ he said, in as candid an admission as he’d ever made to anyone. ‘It seemed more like fun than work—and I felt I was owed a little fun. They would sit around and brainstorm and angst if they were short of creative ideas. They didn’t really notice me hanging around and listening. They used to talk as if I wasn’t there.’ And hadn’t it been that invisibility which had spurred him on—even more than his determination to break free from the poverty and heartbreak which had ended his childhood so abruptly? The sense that they had treated him like a nothing and he’d wanted to be someone.

‘They had a deadline looming and a slogan for a shampoo ad which still hadn’t been written,’ he continued. ‘I made a suggestion—and I remember that they looked at me as if I’d just fallen to earth. Some teenage boy with cheap shoes telling them what they should write. But it was a good suggestion. Actually, it was a brilliant suggestion—and they made me a cash offer to use it. The TV campaign went ahead using my splash line, the product flew off the shelves and they offered me a job.’

He remembered how surprised they’d been when he had coolly negotiated the terms of his contract, instead of snatching at their offer, which was what they’d clearly expected. They’d told him that his youth and his inexperience gave him no room for negotiation, but still he hadn’t given way. He had recognised that he had a talent and that much was non-negotiable. It had been his first and most important lesson in bargaining—to acknowledge his own self-worth. And they had signed, as he had known all along they would do.

‘Then what happened?’

Gabe shrugged as her soft words floated into his head and tangled themselves up with his memories. He had often wondered about the particular mix of ingredients which had combined to make him such a spectacular success, yet the reasons were quite simple.

He was good with words and good with clients. A childhood spent honing the art of subterfuge had served him well in the business he had chosen. His rise to the top had been made with almost seamless ease. His prediction that digital technology was the way forward had proved unerringly correct. He had formed his own small company and before long a much bigger agency had wanted to buy his expertise. He had expanded and prospered. He’d discovered that wealth begot wealth. And that being rich changed nothing. That you were still the same person underneath, with the same dark and heavy heart.

‘I just happened to be in the right place at the right time,’ he said dismissively, because thoughts of the past inevitably brought with them pain. And he tried not to do pain. Didn’t he sometimes feel that he’d bitten off his allotted quota of the stuff, all in one large and unpalatable chunk? He gave her a long, cool look. ‘So if the interrogation is over, Leila, you might like to think about what you want to do today.’

Leila stiffened, her enjoyment of his story stifled by the sudden closure in his voice. Was this what all men did with women? she wondered as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and grabbed a tiny T-shirt and a pair of panties. Tell them just enough to keep them satisfied, but nothing more than that? Keep them at arm’s length unless they were making love to them?

But she knew all this, didn’t she? None of these facts should have surprised her. She’d seen the way her father had treated her mother. She’d seen how quickly women became expendable once their initial allure had worn off. So why the hell was she grasping at rainbows which didn’t exist?

She tugged on the T-shirt and pulled on her panties before walking towards the window, suddenly unenthusiastic about the day ahead.

‘Why don’t you surprise me?’ she said flatly. ‘Since you’re the man with all the ideas.’

She didn’t hear the footfall of his bare feet straight away. She didn’t even realise he was following her until his shadow fell over her and she turned round to meet the tight mask of his face. She could see the smoulder of sexual hunger in his eyes, but she could see the dark flicker of something else, too.

‘What kind of surprise do you want, Leila?’

She could feel the beat of sexual tension as it thrummed in the air around them. He was angry with her for probing, she realised—and his anger was manifesting itself in hot waves of sexual desire. She told herself that she should walk away from him and that might make him realise that sometimes he treated her more like an object than a person. But she couldn’t walk away. She didn’t want to. And didn’t they both want exactly the same thing? The only thing in which they were truly compatible...

She met the smoulder of his gaze and let the tip of her tongue slide along her bottom lip. ‘If I tell you then it won’t be a surprise, will it?’

‘My, how quickly you’ve learnt to flirt,’ he observed softly, his eyes following the movement hypnotically. ‘My little Qurhahian virgin hasn’t retained much of her innocence, has she?’

‘I sincerely hope not,’ she returned, ‘because a wife who lacks sexual adventure will quickly lose her allure. The women of the harem learn that to their peril.’

Her assertion seemed to surprise him, for his eyes narrowed in response. His gaze drifted down to where the tiny T-shirt strained over her aching nipples.

‘You are dressed for sex,’ he said huskily.

She tilted her chin. ‘I’m hardly dressed at all.’

‘Precisely.’

He took a step towards her and backed her into the sitting room towards the L-shaped sofa which dominated one side of the room, and Leila felt excited by the dark look on his face, which made him appear almost savage.

She could feel the leather of the sofa sticking to her bare thighs as he pushed her down on it, and her heart began to hammer in anticipation.

‘Gabe?’ she said, because now he was kneeling on the ground in front of her and pulling her panties all the way down.

But he didn’t answer. He was too busy parting her knees and moving his head between them and, although this was not the first time he had done this, it had never felt quite so intense before.

‘Gabe,’ she said again, more breathlessly this time as his tongue began to slide its way up towards the molten ache between her legs.

‘Shut up,’ he said roughly.

But his harsh words were not matched by the exquisite lightness of his touch, and she couldn’t help the gasp of pleasure which was torn from her lips. Her eyelids fluttered to a close as she felt the silkiness of his hair brushing against her thighs. Her lips dried as the tip of his tongue flickered against her heated flesh and she groaned.

She felt helpless beneath him—and for a moment the feeling was so intense that she felt a sudden jolt of fear. She tried to wriggle away but he wouldn’t let her. He was imprisoning her hips with the grasp of his hands while he worked some kind of sweet torture with his tongue. And surely if she wanted him to stop, she shouldn’t be urging him on by uttering his name. Nor clutching at his shoulders with greedy and frantic hands.

She could feel her orgasm building and then suddenly it happened violently, almost without warning. Her fingers dug into his hair as she began to buck beneath him and just when it should have been over, it wasn’t over at all.

Because Gabe was climbing on top of her and straddling her—entering her with one hard, slick stroke which seemed to impale her. Gabe was moving inside her, and she was crying out his name again and tears were trickling down her cheeks—and what on earth was that all about? She wiped them away before he could see them.

Automatically, she clung to him as he shuddered inside her, his golden-dark head coming to rest on her shoulder and his ragged breath warm against her skin. She found herself thinking that one of life’s paradoxes was that intense pleasure always made you aware of your own capacity for intense pain. And wasn’t that what had scared her? The certainty that pain was lurking just around the corner and she wasn’t sure why.

She closed her eyes and it seemed a long while before he spoke, and when he did his words were muffled against her neck.

‘I suppose you’re now going to demand some sort of apology.’

She turned her head to face him. She saw his thick lashes flutter open and caught a glimpse of the darkness which still lingered in his eyes. ‘I’m not sure that making a woman moan with pleasure warrants an apology,’ she said.

His face tightened as he withdrew from her and rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling and the dancing light which was reflected back from the river outside. He gave a heavy sigh. ‘Maybe it does if that pleasure comes from anger. Or if sex becomes a demonstration of power, rather than desire.’

She didn’t need to ask what had made him angry because she knew. Her questions had irritated a man who liked to keep his past hidden. A man who recoiled from real intimacy in the same way that people snatched their hands away from the lick of a flame and she still didn’t know why.

Maybe she should just accept that she was wasting her time. Leila’s hand crept to her still-flat stomach. Shouldn’t she be thinking about her baby’s needs and the practicalities of her current life, rather than trying to get close to a man who was determined not to let her?

But something made her reach out her hand and to lay it softly over the thud of his heart. ‘Well, whatever your motivation was, we both enjoyed it—unless I’m very much mistaken.’

At this he turned his head, and his grey eyes were thoughtful as he studied her. ‘Sometimes you surprise me, Leila.’

‘Do I?’

‘More frequently than I would ever have anticipated.’ He stroked his hand over the curve of her hips. ‘You know, we ought to think what you’re going to do next week.’

‘Next week?’ She drew her head back and looked at him. ‘Why—what’s happening next week?’

‘I’m going back to work. Remember?’ He kissed the curve of her jaw. ‘Honeymoons don’t last for ever and I do have to work to pay the bills, you know.’

Suddenly she felt unsettled. Displaced. ‘And in the meantime, I’m going to be here on my own all day,’ she said slowly.