Sheikh's Command (8 page)

Am I a link in a chain that goes back hundreds of years?
Olivia wondered.
What will they say about me when I am gone?

“You look frightened,” he said. “Are you?”

She should have been. There was so much to frighten her. She did not know what would happen in a month. She didn't know what would become of her family. She was trapped on a high mountain peak with a man who had once threatened to destroy the people who were most dear to her.

Olivia shook her head. “I'm not frightened, I'm …”

Ready.

The word was so bold in her mind that at first she shook it off. However, when she thought of it, she realized that beyond a shadow of a doubt, it was absolutely the right word. She felt the way she did before she brought her bow down to the strings, when the light shone on her, and all the rustling of the audience had fallen into an expectant hush.

It was too much to say. She had been a musician all her life, and words were not always her friends. Instead, in the circle of Makeen's arms, she turned to face him. His face was dark in the dim light, but it was easy enough to reach up and to trace his lips with the pads of her fingers. Instinctively, his soft tongue came out to lap at her sensitive fingers, making Olivia shiver with desire.

“All my life, I thought I knew desire,” she said softly. “I wanted to play my violin, I wanted to perform for an audience of thousands, I wanted to make my living doing what I loved best. This … this is different.”

“How so?”

“I want this more.”

Her words were naked in the darkness. Olivia wasn't sure that she could have said them in the light. They were too different from what she had believed for years, too far from who she used to be to be understood. But, as she was beginning to learn, she was turning into someone new, like warm clay in Makeen's hands, and though a part of her was terrified, more of her wanted it.

She could feel a shiver go through Makeen's body at her soft words. In that moment, Olivia knew that if she had any doubts about what was going to happen tonight, she should stop him. She knew that she could. She could say a word and send him away.

She didn't.

Instead, she trembled as he bent his dark head down to hers, one hand coming up to tangle in her dark hair. He held her still as he kissed her, but there was something restrained about the way he did it. The tenderness and care in his kiss was so powerful that it made a lump form in her throat. No one had ever kissed her like this, so sweetly and tenderly.

There was a red-hot current of passion underneath the tenderness, however, that rose up for both of them. He could feel it the same way that she could, and when she pressed more firmly against him, he groaned.

“I have never felt this for another woman,” he said. “You drive me wild. You make me want things that I should not want …”

In that moment, Olivia had never felt freer. She felt as if she could simply push away from the earth and spin into the sky. The only things that kept her grounded were his arms around her and her complete and consuming need for him.

“Want me,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Want me tonight …”

“Always,” he said, and he kissed her again.

That overwhelming tenderness was still there, but now its dark twin of desire was present as well, rising up and making them cling to each other as if there was nothing else in the world. She could feel herself warming to him with just this tender touch. She could feel his manhood rise up to press against her.

With no warning at all, he lifted her off her feet, carrying her like a bride to the enormous white bed. Makeen laid her down on it, and then his hands went to the buttons at the front of her dress. Instead of unbuttoning her clothes, he took two great fistfuls of fabric in his hands and yanked, the light cloth ripping apart like tissue.

Olivia had not understood how erotic the sensation and sound of tearing fabric could be, nor the sudden feeling of being entirely exposed. Suddenly, in the dim room, she was lying in front of the man she wanted like she wanted to breathe, bare except for her lacy bra and panties.

“You have no idea how beautiful you are,” he whispered, sitting back on his heels to look at her. “Your skin is the softest I have ever felt. You look as if you were made just for me.”

In that moment, Olivia felt as if he were right, as if every part of her was made for Makeen, and that her twenty-four years without him had starved her. Now her body cried for him, and the only thing that kept her sane was that she would not be denied for much longer. Without thinking, she reached for him imploringly, and he was not strong enough to resist that.

He came to rest on top of her, supporting most of his weight on his elbows as he started to kiss her again. When his tongue thrust into her mouth, she sucked on it desperately, aware that it was only a pale imitation of what was going to come afterward. When Makeen pulled back, she moaned with disappointment, but he was only shifting down her body, trailing kisses from her jaw, down her neck to her soft shoulders and beyond.

Makeen lavished kisses and licks on her large breasts, proving them to be far more sensitive than she had ever dreamed. When he brushed the tips of his fingers over the sides, she shivered, the peaks of her nipples going hard. Makeen took first one peak in his mouth and then the other, causing Olivia to buck with surprised arousal.

“I … never thought I liked having my breasts touched like that before,” she whispered in surprise, and his laugh was a low growl.

“If there is something that you do not like, I command you to tell me immediately,” he said with a playful growl, “but until then, little songbird, I only want you to lie down and enjoy it …”

She started to respond, but then any clue about what she was going to say was ripped out of her mind entirely as his wet mouth moved down the soft curve of her belly. With a motion that she could only describe as practiced, he slipped her panties down her long legs, throwing them free before she was even quite aware what he was doing. Olivia cried out when she realized how bare she was in front of him, but she had no time to worry about it as he was spreading her legs to lie down between them.

Experimentally, she bent her legs and ran them along his shoulders, marveling at his strength and the feel of his skin, so different from hers. The differences between them were strangely sensuous to her, how hard he was compared to how soft she was.

She knew what he was planning to do, but Olivia still blushed when Makeen started stroking his fingers along the tangle of dark hair between her legs. The touch was so intimate it made her squirm, but Makeen used his sheer weight to hold her still, making her lie quietly as he touched her. She had thought from the way their passion ignited that they would simply fall on each other like wild beasts, but now he was touching her with a slow deliberation that made her moan with surprise. First he stroked his fingers along her slit until she was nearly frantic with need, and only then did he slide a finger inside her. The pressure sent a bolt of pleasure through her, but it wasn't enough, wasn't nearly enough at all.

When he pressed his mouth to the top of her slit, sucking and pulling at the flesh there, her hand fell down to land in his hair, tugging fitfully. No matter what Olivia did, however, he refused to be hurried. Instead, he teased and tantalized her, making her rise up with need time after time only to deny her the trembling climax she knew lay just beyond.

“Please, Makeen!” Olivia cried finally. “Please, please, I can't take this any more …”

He laughed a little hoarsely, and when she looked down at him, his eyes glittered in the dark.

“I could do this all night,” he murmured. “Bring you close time after time until you were begging me …”

“I am begging you now!” she whimpered, tugging ineffectually at his hair. “Please … please, I need you …”

Something about the plaintiveness of her tone convinced him. In a smooth motion, he shifted upward, and now he was reaching into the small table by the bed. She looked up, startled, when a foil package was placed in her hand.

“Put it on me.”

His command vibrated with power and authority, and Olivia swallowed hard as she tore it open. She had worked with her hands all her life, but now she felt as if she was nothing but thumbs. It seemed as if she could not get the latex disc placed properly, and then when she started to roll it down his long, thick shaft, it only pulled and tugged. Finally, it was on, and just as she was looking up to see his reason, he pushed her flat back on the bed.

“This,” he growled. “This is what I have wanted since I laid eyes on you.”

Without any more warning than that, he slid into her with a deep, perfect thrust, joining them so completely that they both moaned. She looked up to see an expression of pure awe on his face before he began thrusting into her deeply, filling her with each thrust before pulling back out to do it again.

Olivia was carried away by sensations. The pleasure that he had been teasing and torturing her with was suddenly free to tear its way through her, and now she gave herself up to it. She twined her legs around his hips, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. She would do anything, anything to get closer to him and the things that he was making her feel.

“Beautiful little songbird, so perfect, so damnably perfect, and all for me …”

His words dropped into Arabic, murmuring words that sounded both loving and utterly filthy, and that only took her pleasure higher and higher. When he reached down to nip at her sensitive ear lobe, that was what did it. Suddenly, her body started shaking with pleasure, and Olivia tensed up to draw it higher as it broke over her.

She was shouting, her body beyond her control, as she twisted her way to a climax beyond anything she had ever felt. It was as if she was being molded in fire, as if she were flying high on wings of flames. Somewhere beyond the veil of her desire, she could feel Makeen thrusting deeply into her with a final groan. He shuddered over her just as her own pleasure was receding, making her whimper with completion. She clung to him fiercely, in that moment, ready to protect him from all comers. Olivia had never thought that she knew much beyond her violin, but right now, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this man was hers. He was the one who would protect her, and he was the one that she knew she had to protect as well. There was nothing else to be done about it.

He collapsed on top of her, his body a heavy weight that gave her a kind of pleasure and contentment of a sort she had never felt before. She stroked his back gently. There was a peace here that she had never known, something sweet and quiet now that the desire had been paid its due.

It seemed like no time at all before Makeen heaved himself off and away from her, kissing her gently before going to the bathroom to clean himself and dispose of the condom. When he came back, he came to lie down next to her, on his side, with his hand draped casually and possessively over her belly.

“Why didn't you tell me it had been so long for you?” he asked, kissing her neck.

“Oh, was the lack of aptitude so very obvious?” she asked, slightly indignant.

Makeen laughed at her offense before reaching his hand down to squeeze her between her legs. The motion, intimate and knowing, took her breath away, as well as reigniting a flame of desire that she would have thought had been extinguished for at least a little while.

“You're tight, little songbird,” Makeen murmured. “I would have thought you were in pain if you had not clung to me and made sounds that urged me on …”

She blushed, turning her head away. “I don't like it when you tease me,” she muttered.

He kissed her shoulder placatingly. “I am not teasing you,” he said, his voice low and soft. “Only admiring.”

With a soft sigh, she turned towards him. The room was nearly black now. She could not make out his expression, whether it was sweet or mocking, serious or amused.

“I have never known a man like you,” Olivia said quietly. “I do not know whether to be afraid of you or to cling to you with everything I have.”

With a single motion, he gathered her close and kissed her thoroughly. She was aware of how her body seemed molded to fit his, as if he was everything that she had ever wanted or needed. This was a man who could be a stone wall between her and the world, who could protect her the way that she had always yearned to be protected. All she had to do was to give up everything she had ever wanted.

“We will never be like other people,” he whispered to her. “We will only be ourselves, and when I am with you, everything feels so good, so right. That is all that I need to think about for now. That is all I need in this moment.”

She knew that it was not enough, that it could never be enough, but now he was kissing her again, stirring from her that fire that he could pull forth so easily. Her only consolation was that she could pull it from him as well. This time, when he kissed her, she kissed him back with all the fervor in her body. She tried to show him how much she needed him and wanted him, and as he rose over her again, she knew that this was the man who would make her his.

***

After their second time, they fell into an exhausted slumber. When Olivia drifted off, it was with his breath hot against her shoulder, one arm draped over her hip. They slept together as if they had been born to do it.

When she dreamed, however, it was a dark thing. She was dressed all in black, standing on an empty stage. A single white spotlight lit her up and made her blink, but that mattered less than her violin in her hands. She raised her bow to the strings and wrenched a wail of music from it, a song so wild and lost that she knew it was written from grief, from sorrow, and pain.

It was the performance of a lifetime.

When she stopped, the lights came up. She was playing in an enormous auditorium but the only person there was Makeen. He stared at her across the empty space between them. It had been the most amazing performance of her life, but he only watched her with eyes filled with dark contempt and distaste. She had never seen that kind of disgust on his face for her.