Sheikh's Possession (6 page)

"I'm sorry about your parents," she said. "Have they been gone long?"

"Several years now," he said practically. There was an ease to his statement that told her that the grief was mostly dealt with, but there was a deeper sadness that told her that he still missed them.  "They died in a plane crash coming back from a function in Dubai."

Something about the way he said it clicked with his expertise in the helicopter. She wondered if his expertise with the small craft gave him some kind of control over the tragedy that took his parents.

Then they were landing on the helicopter pad, and there were far more things to focus on. She sat with him as he took care of the landing procedures, and then he helped her down from the craft.

Berry's legs were unsurprisingly wobbly after their flight, and she might have pitched forward if he hadn't been there to catch her.

"Poor thing, were you more afraid than you let on?" he teased, and she tossed her head at him. The motion made her scarf fall down, spraying her chestnut hair over his arm.

"Hardly, just cramped," she said. "Now let's see what you have for me to see …"

He led her through the halls of the mountain manor, pointing out things that might interest her, like the view over the mountains and a chair that had been in the family since it became the ruling dynasty of Alamun. However, what fascinated Berry the most was the fact that despite it being a very rich, very lavish place, it was also a home. There were hints here and there of the individuals who had lived in it; along one wall were black and white photographs that she had to stop and peer at.

"Oh my goodness, is that you?" she asked, pointing.

Reluctantly, Rasul peered over her shoulder and then nodded.

"Ah, of course you have found perhaps the most awkward picture of me you could have. Yes, it is me."

She could see why Rasul looked so chagrined. The boy in the picture was perhaps twelve, and though he was dressed in a handsome silk tunic and trousers, there was a mutinous expression on his face that was certainly not helped by his swollen lower lip and his blackened eye.

"That was my cousin Mori," he said darkly. "I do not remember what we were fighting about, but we were definitely fighting."

"I see," Berry said, amused. "Did you win?"

Rasul sighed. "I suppose it depends on who you ask. These days, I am the Sheikh, and Mori is a very successful investment banker in Dubai. I like to think that I have the power to retroactively declare a victory."

"I am not certain that it works like that," she said, moving on to the next picture. "Is this one you?"

Rasul only had to glance at it before shaking his head.

"Not at all. That is a picture of my father, taken when he was just a year or two older than I am right now. I still have his clothes, and I suppose that if I put them on, that's what I would look like."

Berry was just beginning to wonder if she had trod on some sensitive ground when Rasul smiled and pointed at another photo.

"My mother and father on their wedding day.  They are quite solemn."

Rasul looked so much like his father that she would have thought that he would look nothing like his mother. Then when she looked closely at the woman in the traditional robes and the tall gilded headdress, she could see that her eyes were almost shockingly pale.

"Is she where you get your eyes from?" she asked, and he nodded.

"That side of my family is very well off, but in the distant past, it was said that the only thing that they had to bargain with was the beauty of their daughters. My mother was quite beautiful, and all my aunts as well as some of my cousins have the same eyes as well. It's a little aggravating really. I am the only male in the family who has them, and believe me when I say that that was something that was remarked on a great deal when I was young."

"I think that they are beautiful," she said softly.

For a moment, she thought that he hadn't heard her. Perhaps that was for the best. For the most part, men liked to be called handsome, not beautiful, didn't they? Then he turned towards her with a slight smile, those gray eyes bright, and yes, this man was beautiful.

"Thank you," he said. "I don't know if I would like that from … well, anyone else besides you."

"You're getting ahead of yourself," she said, striving to put a little distance between them. "I'll bet you hear that from all of the women that you've brought up here."

"Actually, you are the first woman I have brought here," he said, his voice oddly soft. "This has always been a family place. I wouldn't bring up a woman who was not family. At least not without a damned good reason."

For a moment, listening to his words, her heart beat a little faster. Was he saying that she was somehow special? That she mattered in a way that those other women hadn't? The fantasy was intoxicating for a moment, but then she crashed back down to earth when she thought about the "damned good reason." He might have been interested in her, sensed the chemistry between them, but the good reason that he had to bring her here likely had everything to do with the antiques that he wanted her to appraise and very little to do with how special she might or might not have been.

"All right," she said, stepping back from the wall of photos. "That's enough satisfying my curiosity. What's up here that you wanted me to look over?"

"I will satisfy your curiosity about anything you wish," he said, and she wasn't sure what trick of his voice or face made it sound positively dirty.

When she gave him a skeptical look, however, he sighed and stepped away from the wall as well. "All right, this way."

The pieces that he wanted to show her were situated in a long hallway with a glass ceiling. When Berry first entered the space, she couldn't help but stare up at the blue, blue sky as seen through the glass.

"How beautiful," she said softly. "This must be amazing when it snows …"

"Like a magical land from a fairy tale," he promised. "Tonight, we can come back if it is clear and you can see the stars."

For a moment, she was so elated by the idea of seeing the stars, so pure and clear far away from the city, that she missed the part about staying the night.

"You mean we're not going back today?"

"Not unless you absolutely need to go back," he said with a shrug. "It's not really an easy flight, and it is better done in daylight anyway."

"Oh." When he put it that way, it made sense that they would stay the night. "Only I don't have any clothes or supplies …"

"I can take care of that easily enough," he said with a shrug. "Many of my female relatives have stayed here, and they have left a thousand years' worth of clothing and of course there are toiletries. It is convenient enough for us to spend the rest of the weekend here if you'd like."

He offered it in such an offhand way that she was taken by surprise. Before she could comment on it, he gestured down the hall.

"The marble figures are the ones that I have brought you here to examine. They were collected piecemeal, and all that my family knows is that they are all marble."

Berry nodded, getting out her tablet and getting ready to get to business. This was her job, after all, and it would likely help steady her. There was something intoxicating about Rasul, and if she was unoccupied for too long … well, this was the first time she had ever really understood the saying that idle hands were the devil's playground.

"All right," she murmured, as she started walking down the first line of marble sculptures. "I'm going to take a quick and dirty look at all of them and go back and get the ones that look interesting."

"Surely they are all interesting?" he asked, following behind her. She smiled ruefully at him.

"Well, these first two are Victorian fakes."

"Oh?"

"Yup. Most families wanted to have Hellenistic statues in their homes, and the market for ancient marble chipped just last week went sky-high. If you look carefully, you'll see that the marks are from tools that are comparatively modern."

"Ah. My great-aunt will be disappointed."

"They're still Victorian pieces, though, if this is any consolation. All right, this one of the hunter is only a little older, but this one of the woman and the doe may very well be the real thing …"

She continued, concentrating on making her verbal notes as she went, as after all, she was very good at this. The pieces were mostly unremarkable, but there were a few that stood out. She had to admit, however, that they were all quite beautiful, and in a collection put together by a wide variety of people, that in itself was a notable achievement.

At the end, however, she stopped and stared at the last statue.

"I'll admit that that is one that I’ve wondered about," Rasul said from behind her. Somehow, during her tour of the statues, he had gotten much closer to her than she had thought he had. Now he was nearly directly behind her, his breath soft in her ear. If she had wanted to, she could simply lean back and find herself in his arms. She swallowed instead, focusing on the piece in front of her, trying to think of what she wanted to say.

It featured a woman in loose robes, her hair unbound in a way that was surprising. The woman leaned back, one arm raised to the heavens and the other arm limp by her side. Her eyes were closed, her lips were open, and she looked exactly like a woman in ecstasy.

"I think …" she started, and then she tried again. "I think this one is actually a Renaissance piece. The way the figure is carved, the quality of the marble, it has more to do with the Renaissance than it does with the classical period. Before I do any research, I would say that this looks a lot like St. Theresa to me."

"And, ah, her expression?"

Berry tried to keep her voice level, because if she gave it the least chance, it would absolutely shake. "Er, well, St. Theresa was a woman who experienced the miraculous as … as ecstatic. She left behind writings that spoke of the divine as entering her as a beam of light, leaving her impaled in a kind of religious agony."

Rasul tilted his head to look up at the statue. "I am not sure that agony is the word that I would use for this woman," he mused.

Berry knew that she should let the matter drop. Religious agony was a perfectly good way to describe what the saint was going through. It had been used in many academic texts to describe that exact look on her face. However, Berry knew that she was going to contradict that.

"Well, it can mean several different things. St. Theresa had visions. Some say that the visions were a result of migraines, that the bursts of light and faintness were due to pain. Others … well, others say that it was a result of spontaneous sexual release."

"Spontaneous … sexual … release," Rasul repeated, and when he looked at her, she felt butterflies in her stomach.

"Yes," she said, her mouth suddenly dry. "That's … at least, that's what they say."

He looked up at the statue again, and then glanced down at her. In a heartbeat, it was clear to her what he was wondering. Was that what she would look like when she came? Would she close her eyes and arch her back, longing for more even as the sensations drove through her until she was spent?

"I, um … Okay, I'm going to start from the beginning again, and do some proper write-ups for you. This way, we both know that there are not going to be any surprises. Does that work for you?"

"Yes …" he said slowly. "That works just fine for me."

She did as she said, but as they went on, she could feel his clear gray eyes on her. No matter how innocuous her motions or how quiet his reply, she could feel the electric, erotic undercurrent right beneath everything that they did together.

Finally, Berry had to excuse herself to the bedroom, just so she could get the breather that she needed. In the cool air-conditioned room that he had told her was hers for the length of their stay, she threw herself on the bed, staring up at the silk canopy with unseeing eyes.

I can't even say how much trouble I am in,
she thought.
I want him so much …

But the same barriers that had been there the entire time hadn't changed in the least. They were still there. He was still a man who was too used to getting what he wanted. She was still a woman who needed her own way. Some part of her wondered if there was a way for them to meet in the middle, while her common sense was telling her that there certainly was not.

One of the reasons that he had brought her to this mountain retreat was to find out how compatible they really were. However, the closer they got to figuring that out, the more frightened she became. She wondered if, in loving this man, she would lose herself to him. No matter what they agreed on, at the end, it would be a fling for him. She was becoming much more afraid that it would turn out to be something much more for her.

She wasn't proud of herself, but she spent the rest of the day hiding in the bedroom. When Rasul appeared to tempt her with dishes, she claimed that she was too busy to stop, though she did accept the food that he offered. When she went back to her desk with the sandwich and appetizers he had made her, she felt even guiltier.

How many women wanted to be right where she was now? How many would love to have a man like Rasul plying her with food and charm?

Berry shook her head hard. She couldn't let the feelings that were overwhelming her take over. Even as a part of her wanted nothing more than to be close with this man, the rest of her told her that it was dangerous.

However, even as she lay down in the cold bed, she couldn't stop remembering how he had looked at her in the hall, how his eyes had seemed to be lit from within with a beautiful glow. The desire was so powerful that it warmed her even now, and though she tried to sleep, she could not resist thinking about those skilled hands running over her, setting her on fire.

Please,
she imagined whispering to him in the night.
Please take me …

CHAPTER SIX

Rasul paced in his own room. Outside the dark window, the wind kicked up, howling through the mountain peaks. It suited his mood, and he tried to keep his mind away from the beautiful woman that he knew slept just a few rooms away.