The Sheikh's Captive Mistress (6 page)

It was fast at first, the bluntness of the tip of his tongue entering into the folds of her vagina, delicately tracing the labia and lapping up at the juices there. Then he maneuvered his way to her clit and began to suck at the already sensitized nub of nerves there. She was already throbbing with desire, but when he sucked at her, making her engorge even further, well, Emma could no longer be quiet. She gave a wail of pleasure that was probably heard all the way to the borders of Omai and bucked her hips toward her lover’s face.

“Please, now.”

“Demand,
habbibi
, that’s right. Tell me how to fuck you.”

“Fuck me hard,” she said, her voice firm. “Fuck me now, Munir.”

He said nothing, but went ahead to comply, his tongue swirling over her clit in a circle that had her roaring and her legs quivering beneath him. It was as if liquid magma was pouring through every part of her arteries, as if she’d become fire incarnate. Once he increased his pace, his tongue moving at a speed that surprised her, she lost it completely. Her nerves exploded into a riot of sensations and pleasure and she came, screaming his name loudly into the night.

It took a long time to feel that she’d come back to herself, that she was she could even form rational thoughts. Movement was a pipe dream as every part of her felt pleasantly liquefied, turned to jelly from the overload. Still, rolling over as best she could, she grinned back at Munir. “That was amazing.”

“I’ve had much training in so many things, princess. I can show you so much.”

“If you start dragging out a blue genie and a magic flying carpet,” she snarked, “I’m going to think I really have gone Disney.”

“You haven’t,” he said, stroking her light gold hair back from her face. “I’m the one who has found paradise,” Munir continued, spooning around her. “You’ll see more of what I’ve planned in the morning. Everything you want, anything, and I can give it.”

Except my freedom
.

When she woke, Emma was disappointed and a bit scared to find that Munir was no longer with her. Of course, when she glanced back out the window, she could tell that the sun was high in the sky. Munir had a country to run, especially now when there was so much turmoil in Yoman. It wasn’t a slight, couldn’t be.

“Well, things are going rather well,” Basheera said, carrying clothes under one arm and a small tray of sweet breads in the other. “One of the other girls is bringing juice right along, Sheikha.”

“I’m not even married yet!”

Basheera grinned, that knowing smile of hers playing devilishly on her lips. “I think that you may yet be, Emma. I told you that sometimes giving into love could be worth it.”

“But his father, Sheikh Shadid, he never made you his wife.”

“He’d already had a wife and she’d died when Munir was only ten.”

She blinked and then felt the words escape her. She knew the former sheikh had been ailing but alive from the news and her father’s rants at dinner. Emma had always assumed Munir’s mother had private quarters similar to her own, but near the old sheikh, that she was still alive if apart from the main bustle of the harem girls.

“I didn’t know.”

“I did not expect you to. Munir and Kashif were small boys when I came to live here. Abdalla had proven unfaithful in her duties as lead harem girl.”

“I can’t imagine that Kashif is much more loyal than his mother. I really loathe him.”

“You are not alone in this,” Basheera replied, setting down the clothes on a divan and handing the breads to her.

She bit into one and moaned a bit at that, and it was embarrassing. Nothing was as good as the orgasms that Munir had given her last night, had gifted her with really. However, these soft hot rolls cooked with honey and dates still made her taste buds tingle with flavor. Ruefully, she pinched her hip under her sheet, still the only barrier between her being naked fully before Basheera. If she lived in the palace much longer, she’d be massive. Emma already was larger than other girls; she’d need to watch what she ate or the sheikh would no longer care.

“They are good. Naseem is a man of many talents.”

“So he kills for the palace guard, steals women from D.C.,
and
makes the best rolls I’ve ever had?”

Basheera grinned and there was something in the twinkle in her eyes that made Emma wonder if she and Naseem had ever been more than coworkers. “He has many sides. Don’t worry about eating here. In Yoman culture, it’s considered rude not to finish a meal. Let those foolish customs of the models and actresses in your country go.”

“You forgot prep school girls and debutantes.”

“Those as well, then,” she continued, putting her hair back up in its plaits, and Emma noticed the faint traces of gray were sprinkled throughout the other woman’s luxurious curtain of dark hair. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do, yes? So when in Yoman,
eat
.”

She grinned at that and scarfed down a second roll. “Yes, ma’am. You don’t have to tell me twice.”

“Somehow, I doubt you are a girl who actually listens often. Munir may have bitten off more than he can chew with you.”

She smirked and leaned back against her headboard. “I don’t want this to be easy for him. I care about him, and I get he has a lot of political pressure on him over me, but I didn’t ask to be taken. You can’t just abduct people! He could have started with flowers and a movie back home.”

Basheera snorted. “He’s under a deadline and those peace treaties won’t wait.”

“Well, if I stay here as a queen, I doubt Daddy’s going to comply.”

The other woman cursed in Arabic, something that Emma couldn’t follow. “He is as headstrong as some I could name. This was not part of the original deal. I don’t think any of us, least of all Munir, know how this is going to end.”

“So what are you saying?” Emma asked, licking the honey off her fingers and blushing when she recalled Munir doing the same thing with her own juices last night.

“I’m saying, my Sheikha, that you have all the power here, be careful what you do with it. Two countries’ futures are in play here.”

“Ugh,” she groaned, bringing a pillow over her face. “No pressure, right Basheera?”

“Not for today,” the older woman replied, voice sturdy as the oak of Emma’s bed. “For today, you’re going to need to just put these on and be careful.”

“What some genie pants? Maybe I’ll do the Dance of the Seven Veils?”

Basheera spread out the tan breeches, thick leather boots, and t-shirt for her. “No, today you ride.”

***

Munir had always envied the prized Arabians that his father bred. They were a passion that the old sheikh had nursed from his own adolescence. He’d fallen into the habit before he’d even been old enough to join the military at eighteen as was Yomanian custom, especially for members of the royal family. After all, how could you rule a country if you had not bled for her first? Still, he’d always had a talent for breaking them, remaking such rebellious creatures into what he needed.

Except, when he broke in the horses, when they were no longer green, Sheikh Shadid lavished them with attention, made sure they had the most stress free environment possible, and that they were cared for and well-groomed by their other trainers. He made sure that they were loved.

He’d never quite mastered doing that for his actual human sons.

Still, the specimens his father had raised were the fastest of all the horses in Yoman, if not this part of the Middle East. They’d won countless races in the most extreme climates of the world and had a bloodline worth millions. Only Secretariat’s descendants were more prized. They were raw power and beauty under rippling brown fur.

He was prepping Jarib with his saddle, getting the last bits of old skin and sweat off with the curry comb when his sheikha walked up to him. Munir felt as if his breeches were suddenly a size too small and realized that he’d become hard just by watching her approach. Shifting his legs a bit, he positioned himself differently so his pants draped in a new way. He cared greatly for her, was falling madly in love with his spitfire, but he didn’t need her to see how easily he would crumble for her. It was scary. Realizing another person had total control over him and that if she ever did truly reject him, he’d be crushed.

Still, it wasn’t hard to appreciate how her own breeches hugged the curves of her ample and enticing hips and complimented her firm, supple calves.

“
Habbibi
, are you ready to ride?” he asked, grabbing the saddle.

He’d been trained in different styles, but figured for her they’d start with Western, the style of American cowboys, after all. It made it easier to stay in the saddle and she was so new to it. He dropped the damn thing when she easily hoisted herself up onto the horse and started walking him around the ring with only the bridal and no saddle at all.

“I’m from North Carolina, please. I rode for years on a local farm before we moved to D.C. Let’s see what you’ve really got.” She was grinning again, that same mischievous smirk that made her blue eyes light up like fireworks, that made his shaft even harder and his body ache with need.

He had pegged her right after all. His
habbibi
was a woman of many surprises.

***

She took to cantering easily over the sands of the arena. Munir was riding in an easy rhythm beside her on another horse. The feeling of freedom was amazing, that fierce wind rippling through the hair hanging out from under her helmet, the flip-flopping of her stomach as Jarib’s speed picked up. Hell, especially the way her heart hammered at every turn. She hadn’t ridden since high school, but had been good at it, even had the ribbons to show for it. Dressage had been her specialty, all that fancy English style precision, but on the weekends, the farm she’d ridden on in Louisburg had gone country.

She was a mean barrel racer, too.

The entire time as they rode, Munir just grinned back at her, amazed as if he’d never seen her before. Finally, the scrutiny was too much for her. She slowed Jarib to a walk and leaned back just a bit on his back.

“Okay what gives?”

“Gives?”

“Oh, I mean why are you staring at me all Stepford?”

“I am afraid that I don’t understand that question.”

Right, he probably hadn’t seen every American television show or movie. Her pop culture references might sometimes be lost in translation. Bummer.

“I mean,” she said, pushing some errant golden hair from her eyes. “You don’t have to look so amazed. I know I’m bigger, but-”

He shook his head. “No, never. You’re everything I could have wanted in a queen. Believe me when I say that you’re beautiful, beyond exquisite, Emma.”

She blinked back at him and probably would have kissed him if they weren’t on horseback and too far apart to maneuver it. He rarely called her by her actual name. He’d done it on purpose, to make a point about his sincerity. This god of a man found her sexy, and it made her heart melt.

“Still, why are you so confused?”

“I confess, I did not think you could ride.”

“I guess your files don’t have everything about me.”

“They’re based on you since entering Harvard, only. Your posture on the horse is impeccable, the control you have. I suppose I assumed you were, how do they say it, ‘an indoor girl.’”

“I was a 'stuck in the library girl,'” she replied, patting Jabir on the neck. “Burden of trying to study your ass off to get into law school. But I love horses, always have. Besides, I bet I’m a better damn rider than you.”

He snorted. “Now, let us not get ahead of ourselves.”

“No, I think so. I tell you what. Let’s race.”

Munir stopped his horse dead then. “Maybe that is not the best idea.”

“Oh, so now it’s an old Middle Eastern thing. A lowly woman couldn’t possibly beat the mighty king?”

Munir laughed, a rumble that was more a purr and made her thighs clench in the most delicious of ways. “It’s more that I’m very good; I raced as a teenager in competition. It’s best if we do not. I don’t wish to humiliate my sheikha.”

“Weird definition of that when you abducted me and dragged me away drugged on a plane. It’s definitely too late for me not to feel humiliated.”

Munir looked away for a long time before answering. She almost felt bad for him, but reminded herself that, as much as she was falling for him, as much pleasure as he gave her, how they’d come to be together was completely unacceptable.

Finally, he looked back at her, those penetrating hazel and gold eyes regarding her with mirth. “I still could not live with myself if you were thrown.”

“Or you don’t want to admit defeat when you are surely defeated by a girl, I get it.”

“No, I-”

She grinned and dug her heels into Jabir’s side. “Look first one to complete three circuits wins. The deal is if I lose, I tell you anything about me you want.”

“What if you win?” Munir asked. “Not that I’m saying it is possible because clearly I will school you, but what would you get,
habbibi
?”

“Quid pro quo. I get to know more about you,” she said, before clucking and sending Jabir racing underneath her. “Oh and we already started.”

***

Munir dug his heels into his steed’s side and tightened up on the reins Crouching low into a gallop, he urged his horse forward, catching up neck and neck with Emma as they made their first pass through the ring. It was exhilarating. Once he’d started working hard to repair his kingdom’s tattered peace with America, he’d had no time for himself, no opportunity to do the things he loved. The wind whipping through his hair and the thrill of making a tight turn on such a quick animal were firing up his veins.

But not nearly as much as the sight of his wild
habbibi
. His dear one was pulling ahead of him on the straightaway of the second lap, her breasts bobbing in her shirt as she leaned into the horse’s pace. The hair poking out from her helmet was floating outwards all over the wind, and he was struck seeing her wild like that. She reminded him of a goddess come to life, of Diana with her hunt or Kali in all her raw power.