Sheikh's Command (9 page)

Without a word, Makeen turned and made his way up the aisle. As she called his name, he strode from the room. He went out the door, and then she was alone.

No, not alone.

Her brother stood beside her, dressed in his cheap court suit, a sickly smile on his face.

“Guess you weren't good enough for him after all, Sis,” he said, and with a gasp, she sat up in bed, staring in the darkness. Beside her, Makeen stirred, and she lay back down.

It was just a dream, she tried to tell herself, but she stayed awake and watchful until dawn.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next week passed in a blur. Olivia and Makeen spent every moment together, but far from being a trial, Olivia could not believe how much she desired it. It was as if he had opened the gateway inside her to something that she had always wanted without ever knowing that it was what she needed.

“I forget who I am when I am with you,” she said one night in bed. Her shoulders were covered with love marks, and her lips were bruised with the force of their kisses.

“I never forget who you are,” he said. In the moonlight streaming through the window, under stars that were brighter and more beautiful than any she had ever seen, he looked like a god come to earth, one who had chosen her for his true consort.

“And who am I?” she asked, her lips curving in a soft smile.

“You are perfection. You are talent and passion and music and need and desire. You are Olivia, and you must be loved.”

The words brought a kind of stillness to her. Her panic must have shone on her face, because Makeen only laughed a little.

“Were you not ready to hear those words yet? They are true, I assure you.”

“You … you love me?”

She had heard the words before. She had heard them from men who only wanted one thing, and they used those words like a goad, trying whatever it took for her to give them what they really desired.

“I do,” he said, and there was no stress in his body at all, only a calmness that soothed her soul. “I love you. You don't have to say it just yet. I have full confidence that sometime soon, you will. Until then? I am prepared to wait. You are worth waiting for.”

They went to sleep then, curled up into each other. In the early hours, when the dawn was beginning to come in the window, Olivia sat up to look at Makeen as he slept. When she reached down to trace his fine lips with her fingertips, he smiled a little in his sleep.

I love you,
she tried in her head. The words felt strange, but they sent a deep feeling of warmth through her. It was like nothing she had ever known. Her entire life had always been consumed with music. She had always known that the stage and the violin were what she was meant for. Now this changed it all.

She still wanted to play. She still wanted to perform.

It was terrifying to think that perhaps she wanted Makeen more.

In the end, she wasn't sure there was a choice. She loved him, and she resolved to tell him the next day.

Unfortunately, they were woken up by a phone call, and then, everything changed.

***

Olivia was aware of a tension to the air as soon as she woke. Instinctively, she reached for Makeen, only to find that he was not sleeping next to her. She looked around in confusion, unsure what had awakened her. It was barely past dawn, the light pearly and gray as it came through the tall windows.

Feeling strangely shaken, she pulled on a thin robe and ventured out into the living room. That was where she found Makeen sitting on the couch, his face in his hands and his phone dropped carelessly on the coffee table in front of him.

“Makeen?” she asked, her voice soft and frightened.

When he looked up at her, his face was stone. She hadn't seen him look at her like that since the very early days of their acquaintance, and Olivia felt a thrill of fear run through her.

“I received a call from my investigators,” he said, his voice flat as a board. “Your brother has been picked up again.”

For a moment, Olivia didn't understand what he was saying. The words simply didn't make sense. She couldn't understand them.

“You must be wrong,” she said immediately. “You have to be. David wouldn't …”

“They caught him trying to steal a car,” Makeen said flatly. “He was in the driver's seat trying to hot wire it, and that was how they caught him.”

Olivia shook her head, not wanting to believe it. When Makeen started to speak again, she covered her ears, shaking her head. She gasped when he stepped up to her, pulling her hands from her ears with an inexorable strength.

“Olivia, you need to hear this. One of the investigators who brought him in the first time caught wind of this. He is demanding that justice be done. He is petitioning me directly for permission to throw the book at your brother. That would mean six to ten years in jail at least …”

“No!” Olivia shouted, her eyes filling up with tears. She looked up at Makeen imploringly. “No, please. You promised. You said he would be safe! That he wouldn't be sent to prison …”

Makeen's face was stone. She could find no trace of the man who had loved her so well the night before.

“I forgave him for his first crimes against my country and my countrymen,” he said, his voice harsh. “I cannot do so again. Forgive me, Olivia.”

“No, no, I refuse to accept that,” she cried. “Makeen, please. I am begging you. This is my brother. This is the man who protected me and defended me when I was growing up.”

“When the police tried to apprehend him, he pulled out a gun,” Makeen retorted. “He is not some innocent boy who was caught up in a terrible thing, Olivia. He is a criminal who has preyed on the good will of everyone around him. For heaven's sake, open your eyes.”

“You can't let this happen,” she said, shaking his head. “You can't. You have the power to stop this, so please, stop this, Makeen, I lo—”

The words trembled on her lips, but before they could come out, he clamped his hand down over her mouth. Her eyes flew up to his enraged gaze. Suddenly all semblance of calm was gone, leaving behind it a towering inferno of fury.

“No,” he snarled. “Do not dare. What I told you last night was the truth, but in front of God and heaven, I refuse to allow my love for you to be used like this, as if it were some token that could be moved back and forth on a board.”

When he let go of her, she slumped down onto the couch like a rag doll. She stared up at him, feeling as if all of the life had been drained from her. She thought dully that she must look like a bit of trash, something that would be tossed away at the earliest convenience. She could barely recognize Makeen as the man who had held her so tenderly the night before.

“What happens now?” she asked, her voice terribly calm. “What can possibly be between us now?”

Makeen was still for a very long time. When he spoke, he kept his face turned away from her, as if it was simply too painful to look at her.

“Tomorrow, we are going to return to Zahar. What you do tonight determines what happens when we do.”

“What I do?”

“Yes. I am going to my study. You should return to your room. If you remain there, we will return to Zahar, and see what shall become of us together. I will help you grieve your brother. I will help you mourn, and together, we can decide if there is something between us.”

His voice hardened. “If you come to my study, be prepared to do so as a supplicant. You will make your case to me, you will explain yourself in excruciating detail, and you will do whatever it is in your power to win your brother free. Perhaps he will be free at the end of it, and perhaps not. However, what will certainly happen in this case is that I will know who you are and what you think of me.”

He paused. For a moment, she saw a flicker of softness cross his face, but then it was gone, as elusive as morning mist in a sunlit valley.

“Choose wisely,” he said. “Beyond that, it is all up to you.”

CHAPTER NINE

Olivia faced the door to Makeen's study, staring at the intricate carvings that she knew were well over a hundred years old. She could have stared at them all night, looking at the results of a long-dead man's hand, but she knew that she couldn't.

Instead, with a deep breath, she made herself raise her hand and knock on the door.

“Come.”

When she did, Makeen watched her from behind his desk, his long and elegant fingers templed in front of his face. From the grim expression he wore, she knew that he understood why she was there.

“I want you to let David off,” she said. “Please.”

There were a number of expressions that fluttered across Makeen's face. She saw pain and grief there, and sadness as well, but finally, it was replaced with a stony wrath.

“You don't know what you're asking me.”

“As a matter of fact I do,” she said, lifting her chin slightly. “He is my brother …”

“And what does that make me?”

The question startled her, throwing her off her stride. “What do you mean?” Olivia asked, her voice slightly shaky.

He stood with the slow and languid grace of a panther, coming around the desk towards her. She had to resist the urge to back up. There was something dangerous about him just now, something that made her swallow hard. She knew that he was a big man, but right now, he seemed enormous, taking up all of the air in the room and leaving her with nothing that she could breathe.

“I said,” he repeated, “what am I to you? Who am I, that you can ask me a question like that?”

“You're the Sheikh,” Olivia replied. “You are the one with the power to give me what I …”

“All right then,” he said, and there was something final to his voice that made her very nervous.

“Since I am the Sheikh, who are you?”

“Makeen, what are you—”

“No. At the moment, for you, whoever or whatever you are, you are not allowed to call me by my given name. The proper term of address, for you in this moment, is 'my lord.'”

A part of her cried out at this. This wasn't fair. This was a kind of torture. She didn't deserve this, but if she was honest with herself, he didn't either. All Olivia could do was play the hand that she had been dealt.

“My lord,” she whispered, and there was a savage triumph on Makeen's face, something that made the bottom drop out of her stomach even as she felt herself stir uneasily because of it. There was something in her that craved this, and she didn't know what to think of it.

“I see. And now, you, a woman with no rank, no family, and no money, have come to ask me a favor. What do you think you are going to use to secure my goodwill?”

The words were bland but the meaning was clear. Her eyes widened.

“Please,” she whispered, but his face was implacable.

“What do you have to bargain with?” Makeen asked, his words coldly furious. “What do you have, Olivia?”

There was only one response. She didn't have the backing of a noble family, she didn't have money, she didn't have any political position, any power at all except that which was held in her body. She felt something in her break as she realized what she was going to do.

Trembling, Olivia took a step forward, so close to Makeen that she could see the stitches in his buttons. “My lord …”

“Look at me when you speak, woman,” he said, his voice a low, smooth growl.

Swallowing hard, Olivia made herself look up at him. He towered over her, but there was something to his face, a kind of softness that touched something in her. She didn't understand it, but suddenly, she was no longer afraid.

“My lord, please … let my brother go.”

“And what will you give me in return?”

She couldn't say the words. They were ugly words, too ugly for something that had been an amazing, sensual, and beautiful experience. Though Olivia knew the reality of what she was doing and what she was offering, she couldn't bring herself to say those words.

Instead, she reached up, lacing her fingers behind his neck to pull him down to her. For just a moment, a bare heartbeat of space, she thought he was going to pull away. Perhaps all he wanted to do was humiliate her, and that it would be enough to send her on her way, grieving and empty handed.

She knew he wouldn't.

No matter what was passing between them now, no matter what was ending between them right now … Olivia knew Makeen well enough to count on one thing, and that was that he wanted her like breathing. Like she wanted him.

He might have wanted to pull away from her, but the moment she got her hands on him, he couldn't. The passion that sparked between them was too deep, the promise of desire fulfilled far too strong. Suddenly, his arms were around her, and it didn't matter why they were doing this, only that they were touching, only that they craved each other.

If she kept kissing him, she wouldn't hear the poisonous things he would say. If she clung to him, she could put off the time before he pushed her away. She could make their time together last a little longer, and then perhaps a little longer still.

“Goddamn you, you taste so good,” he growled.

His hands slid up her back to tangle in her hair. Now he was holding her still while he kissed her, devouring her the way he would a meal. He was famished for her, always had been, and she knew that she had won, even if victory was a terribly hollow prize.

“Take me,” Olivia whispered. “Take me, make me forget all this.”

He could have said that she was in no position to be making requests or giving orders. However, there was always something so splendidly raw about them, so very naked and real that there could be no lies here, no posturing, nothing but the purity of the two of them together.

The kiss went on and on, and then Makeen was pushing her back towards the desk. When the edge hit her back, he lifted her up on it. Olivia marveled at his strength even as he came to stand in front of her.

“I want to see you,” he said, the only thing he said by way of explanation.

With quick efficient movements, he stripped her clothes away from her, and silently, she allowed him to do so. There was something restrained to him now, as if he were exercising all of his power to hold himself back from ravishing her.