Surrender in the Arms of the Sheikh

‘You didn’t ask me.’

‘And was that such an unforgivable sin?’ he teased.

She turned her head away, unsure how to cope with him, this powerfully built and exotic man who was making her feel things she wasn’t used to feeling.

‘What is your name?’ he asked, without warning, and she turned back to find herself imprisoned in the blazing ebony spotlight of his eyes.

‘Sienna,’ she whispered, as if he had sucked the word clean out of her, without her permission.

‘Sienna,’ he repeated softly, and nodded. ‘So, are you going to have dinner with me, Sienna?’

Somewhere in the recess of her mind was the thought that staff definitely weren’t supposed to fraternise with the guests—until she remembered that he wasn’t actually a guest. And even further back was another thought—that she was rather good at getting out of her depth. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘Why not?’ he questioned softly.

‘Because I don’t even know your name.’

‘Ah! Did not one of your finest poets once ask: “What’s in a name?”’ His black eyes narrowed. ‘My name is Sheikh Hashim Al Aswad.’

Sheikh? Sheikh? Something in his eyes made her stare at him, aghast. ‘You’re not really a sheikh, are you?’

‘I’m afraid I am,’ he replied gravely.

Sienna stared up at him. Now his dark looks and foreign air and the unmistakable aura of authority made sense. ‘But what on earth would I wear?’

And he laughed. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said truthfully. ‘You are so young and so beautiful that you would look wonderful in anything.’ Or nothing, of course.

That night he took her to a restaurant which overlooked the silver snake of the river which wound its way through the city. The stars outside seemed close enough to touch. And the evening felt magical enough for Sienna to feel that she could.

She had thought she might feel awkward and out of her depth, but instead she was so—excited, and determined to enjoy every second of it. Even the simple little cotton dress she chose seemed okay, because her thick dark hair reached almost to her waist, and she wore it loose and saw the narrow-eyed look of approval he gave and knew she’d got it just right.

It felt like an old-fashioned date was supposed to feel. Hashim ignored the fact that there were two armed bodyguards seated a few tables away, and more outside. This felt different, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Because she seemed so transparently innocent?

‘So tell me about yourself,’ he instructed.

Sienna hesitated, wondering where to begin. Was this true lives or true confessions? She had once done something she didn’t feel too great about—but that one-off act didn’t define her as a person, surely? She’d probably never see him again after tonight—so why let him in on a secret which might ruin the evening?

She thought about what a man born to a sheikhdom would most like to hear. Well, she couldn’t compete on a material front, that was for sure! She leaned forward and clasped her hands on the starched linen tablecloth, and tried to paint a picture of a very different life.

‘I grew up in a little village. You know—a proper English village, with lambs gambolling around the meadows in the springtime and cherry blossom on the trees.’

‘And in summer?’

‘It rained!’ She wriggled her shoulders. ‘Well, actually, it didn’t—it just seems to now, whenever I go back. But maybe that’s because I’m an adult now. When I was little the sun always seemed to be shining and golden.’ She stared into his face, thinking that she had never seen eyes quite so black. ‘I suppose that most people’s childhoods are like that. We view them through rose-tinted glasses.’

He thought not. Certainly his own had been nothing like that, but he would not describe it, nor compare the two. He would not have dreamed of expressing his own thoughts about growing up. Privacy was second nature to him and always had been—drilled into him from the very beginning. Instead, he picked up on the wisftfulness in her voice. ‘If it was so idyllic, then why did you leave?’

Sienna fiddled with her napkin. ‘Birds need to fly the nest.’

‘Indeed they do.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘And is life outside the nest all you dreamed it would be?’

Sienna hesitated. It could be scary. It gave you opportunities, and they could be scarier still. ‘Well, you gain freedom, of course—but you lose stability. I guess that’s what life is like, though—gains and losses—hopefully it all balances out in the end.’

‘You have a very wise head on such young shoulders,’ he said gravely.

‘You’re making fun of me.’

‘No.’ He shook his head and gave a gentle smile. ‘No, I am not. I find your attitude quite charming, if you must know. How old are you, by the way?’

Would he think her too young? Too young for what, Sienna? ‘Nearly twenty.’

But he smiled. ‘Only nearly?’ he teased.

‘Now you,’ she said. ‘What on earth do sheikhs do?’

His mouth twitched. She really was irresistible. ‘Sometimes I ask myself the very same question. Mainly, they rule a country, and that involves much fighting and the quest for power—but they also oversee oil exports, which is why I am here.’ And they are surrounded by a wealth that most people couldn’t begin to comprehend. Especially not her.

Sienna crumbled a piece of unwanted bread. ‘So where’s home?’

For a moment he said nothing, and then gave an odd kind of smile. ‘Qudamah is my home—but I come from a race of nomadic people.’ His black eyes glittered. ‘We do not settle easily.’

If she had been older she would have recognised that he was defining boundaries—but as it was his romantic words simply fired up her already overworking imagination.

Later, in the darkened limousine, his hard thigh brushed against hers and Sienna could hardly breathe. But there was no kiss, merely the request—no, the demand that he see her again.

It all happened so fast—Hashim’s life slipped into a different timescale and he found himself experiencing something which was unknown to him: a tumult of feelings which he was too seasoned and too cynical to call love. Yet his ancestors had been poets and sages, as well as warriors, and he was prepared to acknowledge that somehow Sienna touched a part of him which had before gone neglected. It was as if her innocence and her beauty had begun a slow melt of something he had not known was frozen.

Maybe it was his heart.

She trembled when he kissed her, and he could feel the tension of both eagerness and fear when he took her in his arms. It seemed unbelievable—given her age and her liberal Western upbringing—but something told him that his instinct was correct.

One evening his eyes burned into her as he stared down into her flushed face. ‘You are innocent of men?’ he demanded.

‘Yes,’ she admitted in a low voice, wondering if that admission would drive him away from her. ‘Yes, I am.’

‘Innocent virgin,’ he moaned as he kissed her. ‘My innocent virgin.’

Of course that changed everything. The knowledge of her purity filled him with delight, but there was also the certainty that he now bore a heavy responsibility towards her. For a man whose life had been burdened with responsibility, it was another he could have done without—and yet he found himself embracing it.

He saw her whenever he could, wondering if the frequency of their meetings would remove some of the magic, but the magic remained. He had spent his life avoiding any kind of commitment, yet now he saw that as a deficiency, not a blessing.

He took her to discreet restaurants and she showed him the hidden, secret places of the city. She made him feel alive. Never before had sex been denied him, but this was a self-imposed restraint, and he discovered that doing without something you really wanted could be unbearably erotic.

And yet her innocence made her suitable. Eminently suitable. Of course many bridges must first be crossed, and the first of those would be to introduce her to his family. But without pressure on either side. On neutral territory.

‘How would you like to accompany me to a wedding, sweet Sienna?’ he asked her one afternoon, looping his arms around her waist.

Sienna looked up into his black eyes. ‘Whose? Where? When?’

‘My cousin’s,’ he murmured. ‘In the South of France, next month. My mother and sisters will be there.’ He glittered a smile at her. ‘Will you come as my guest?’

Sienna knew that this was important. A statement. An indication that things were getting serious. She gave him a slow smile of delight. ‘I’d love to,’ she said simply.

Hashim spoke to one of his aides. ‘Will you arrange it, please?’

‘But, Your Highness, you are quite sure?’

Hashim frowned. He would not be dictated to! The history of his country was studded with examples of sheikhs who had taken commoners as wives…

But a couple of days later there was a rap on the door when he was working in his study, and Hashim looked up to see the Arctic dark eyes of his equerry, who was carrying what looked like a glossy magazine between his fingers, as if it was contaminated.

‘Yes, what is it, Abdul-Aziz?’ he demanded imperiously. ‘I am going out shortly.’

His equerry’s face was grim. ‘Before you do, Your Highness, there is something I must draw your attention to.’

For the umpteenth time, Sienna raked her hands back through her hair—fizzing over with a mixture of excitement and nerves.

Hashim was sending a car for her and they were having dinner at the Granchester Hotel, where he was staying.

She was still reeling from his invitation to the family wedding—so excited at the prospect of going public with him that she hadn’t had time to worry about what she was going to say to his mother.

She would just be herself, without artifice or airs, for that was who Hashim liked her to be. She gave herself a little shiver of excitement as she walked up the imposing marble stairs of the Granchester Hotel.

But Hashim was not there to greet her, and neither were any of his staff. Not even the hatchet-faced Abdul-Aziz. Instead, she got a message delivered with a rather knowing look from the receptionist as she was directed up to his suite.

It isn’t the way you think it is! Sienna wanted to say to her. Hashim has never treated me with anything but respect! But as she rode up in the private lift which led to the penthouse she wondered why he had changed the pattern of their meetings.

Hashim opened the door himself, and Sienna was taken aback when she saw him—for she had never seen him dressed like this before. Tonight he looked exactly as she had imagined a sheikh would look.

Gone were the immaculate hand-made suits he usually favoured—which contrasted with his exotic looks and made him such a tantalising combination of East and West. Instead he was wearing a pair of filmy silk trousers in a deep claret colour, with a silky top in the same material. The rich hue made the most of his exotic colouring, and Sienna felt the roof of her mouth dry—for he was barefoot and the shirt was open, and through it she could see his olive hair- roughened chest, darkened with contours of muscle and sinew.

She had never been confronted quite so vividly by his overt masculinity before, and her heart gave a startled little leap as she found herself wondering if he was actually wearing any underwear at all.

But it was more than his state of undress which unsettled her—for his eyes looked dangerous tonight. Steely and brittle. Like jet. Something stopped her from hurling herself into his arms in the breathless way which always made him laugh—and she wasn’t sure whether it was excitement or fear. But why on earth would she be frightened?

‘You look beautiful tonight, Sienna,’ he said deliberately.

Were nerves getting the better of her, or was there an odd undertone to his voice? ‘Thank you. I—’ But her words were lost beneath the hard, heady pressure of his mouth, for he had pulled her into his arms without warning and had begun to kiss her in a way which took her breath away. ‘Hashim!’ she gasped.

Her mouth opened up beneath his and it was enough to ignite all the fire and the fury which had been smouldering away inside him. He kissed her until she was melting and aching and moaning beneath his seasoned touch, and only then did he lift his head and glitter a hard, bright question down at her.

‘Hashim…what?’ he questioned huskily, moving his mouth to her throat to trace a featherlight kiss along its silken path.

It would be madness to protest that he had never kissed her like this before—not when she had spent hours wondering why.

‘Oh-oh-oh!’ She shuddered as he lightly drifted his hand over her breast.

A grim, silent smile of triumph curved his hard lips as his fingertips returned to whisper over their pert lushness. ‘Oh, what, Sienna?’ came the silken query. ‘Is that good?’

‘Oh! Oh!’ she gasped. ‘So good!’

A tiny pulse flickered in the centre of one tensed olive cheek. ‘Tell me what it is you want,’ he grated.

Instinct took over from reservation and sent the words spilling out of their own accord. ‘That,’ she sighed, as his fingers brushed fleetingly against the aching mounds of her breasts. ‘That’s what I want!’

He cupped the magnificent swell in his hand and rubbed a slow and deliberate circle with his thumb. ‘Like this, you mean?’

She nodded as pleasure constricted her throat into a tight, dry band.

‘I can’t hear you, Sienna,’ he urged softly.

‘Yes,’ she moaned. ‘Yes! Just like that. Oh, Hashim…’

How he had misjudged her! Oh, yes! He could feel her responsive body pressing close to his, and knew that if he put his hand up her skirt she would not stop him. How far would she let him go in public? Would she let him unzip himself and plunge right in? Probably.

‘You want that I should make love to you by the lift?’ he demanded hotly.

In some dim recess of her mind she was aware that he sounded almost…harsh…disapproving…But maybe that was because he had been holding back for so long. Didn’t they say that men had difficulty controlling their sexual hunger? Sienna drew back and swallowed breathlessly, lifting the palm of her hand to touch his rugged face, but it looked oddly cold and forbidding. Obviously he was holding himself tightly in check and she must not make him wait any longer—he had played the gentleman to her heart’s content. It was time.

‘Let’s go to bed,’ she whispered daringly.

His mouth hardened. ‘Yes,’ agreed Hashim, in an odd kind of voice. ‘Why don’t we?’

Without warning he shut the door with an echoing slam, then picked her up and carried her towards a vast double bed which was covered with a lavish embroidered gold coverlet.

‘Fit for a king!’ Sienna murmured with delight, but there was no answering smile in his eyes as he put her down on it.

‘Only a sheikh this time, I’m afraid,’ he responded tonelessly. ‘Are you disappointed?’

She wanted to ask him if something was wrong, but by then he had come to lie down beside her and her last reservations melted away.

‘Now, then,’ he said decisively, and began to unbutton her dress, a pure feral smile of hunger emphasising the deep lines around his mouth. ‘Ah…’ He sucked in a slow breath of pleasure as her breasts were revealed to him, spilling lushly pale from the pink lace which confined them. ‘So firm. So tight. So taut. Like two rich, ripe fruits. Beautiful. So very, very beautiful. You have the most beautiful breasts that I have ever seen, Sienna. What a lucky man I am.’

Something in his words unsettled her—but any slight anxiety she experienced was allayed with the expert motion of his fingertips, and Sienna closed her eyes.

‘Yes,’ he murmured approvingly. ‘Lie back and enjoy it.’

Oh, but he was so thoughtful. Beneath that steely exterior he cared for her own pleasure first and foremost. She felt him unclip her bra and give a shuddering sigh. Her eyelashes fluttered open and she surprised a look of almost…reluctance…on his face. But then he lowered his head towards her and she could feel the approaching warmth of his breath.

‘Hashim…’ She swallowed. She wasn’t sure that he’d heard her. ‘Hashim,’ she said again, almost desperately this time, for more than anything she wanted him to kiss her, to whisper sweet words to accompany these erotic gestures.

‘Shh,’ he instructed silkily, for he knew from experience that conversation could break the mood and concentration. He knew what he wanted and he was going to allow nothing—nothing—to stop him from achieving it.

Sienna squirmed on the cold coverlet and the expert movement of his hands made her need for reassurance vanish. Her breasts had never felt like this before. As if they had swollen to twice their normal size and were prickling with excitement—the blood coursing through them so that the slightest touch sent shafts of pure pleasure spiralling through her. She squealed as his tongue licked against the sensitised flesh.

‘You are very responsive for one so…innocent,’ he observed against her puckered nipple.

Another shaft of pleasure so acute that it bordered on pain shot through her, and she was aware of an empty, echoing longing, just crying out to be filled. ‘A-am I?’

‘Yes, you are. And now you will be more responsive still….’

Sienna’s breath caught in her throat, for his hand was moving downwards now, inching towards the heated clamour—the very heart of where she most wanted to be touched—and Sienna silently prayed that he wouldn’t stop.

‘I won’t,’ he said roughly, and she realised that she must have spoken the words out loud.

‘Hashim,’ she whispered, letting her lips rest against the soft furnace of his skin. ‘Hashim, I love you.’

For a moment he stilled, then shook his head very slightly, silencing her with his expert caress. He touched her molten and responsive heat with such delicate skill until she gasped in disbelief—like someone frantically seeking something only not quite sure what. Restlessly, her head moved from side to side as she stumbled towards a place of promise so beautiful that she was certain it could not really exist.

But it did. Oh, it did. She found it and fell into it, sobbing out her fulfilment, scarcely aware of Hashim pulling away from her. But, as reason and sanity began to seep back in, she realised that he was getting off the bed and moving away.

Over to the other side of the room and as far away from her as possible!

She blinked as she struggled to catch her breath. ‘Hashim?’ she croaked in confusion. ‘Is anything wrong?’

‘Wrong?’ He paused before answering her question, sucking in a deep breath as he sought—successfully —to bring his desire under control, to be replaced with the slow simmer of rage. ‘I think that we’re through with playing games, don’t you?’

Sienna sat up on the bed, aware that her clothing was in disarray, feeling somehow cheapened as she stared into the forbidding mask of his face. A Hashim she’d never seen before, and one she barely recognised. ‘Why are you behaving like this?’ she questioned in bewilderment. ‘Don’t you…don’t you want to make love to me? Properly?’

‘You think I would deign to contaminate myself by entering you?’ he questioned insultingly. ‘You who have fooled me!’

‘I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about!’ But some self-protective instinct made her begin to button her dress with trembling fingers.

‘The sweet little virgin!’ he ground out furiously. ‘Like hell you are! Sweet little virgins don’t take their clothes off and pose for pornographic photos!’

And then it all became horribly, horribly clear. That calendar. Those twelve photos. Oh, those wretched, wretched photos.

Sienna flinched and let out a shuddering sigh. ‘You’ve seen them?’

Had there perhaps been some insane part of him which had been hoping that it was all a mistake—that she had a secret identical sister waiting in the wings, perhaps? Because, if so, that futile thought was banished by the look of guilt on her face.

His hopes and dreams for what might have been now crumbled before his eyes like desert dust as he realised his mistake. He had believed her to be the woman he wanted her to be, not the woman she really was. He had been sucked in by her beauty and her air of innocence. Oh, what a fool he had been!

‘Yes, I’ve seen them!’ he grated, remembering that he had been about to introduce her to his family! That he had actually been entertaining thoughts of her as a future bride. Fool!

‘Hashim—please—it isn’t how it looks,’ she said desperately.

She had agreed to do the calendar as a one-off to get her mother the operation she’d needed. Her mother had been crippled with pain and facing ruin, and the badly needed operation had been expensive. It had been an unconventional way to get the money, yes—but the only way which had been open to her at the time. And surely if Hashim realised how desperate she had felt. How hopeless her mother’s predicament…

‘Please, Hashim…I can explain—’

‘What? How you came to be rubbing your breasts and simulating orgasm?’ he cut in brutally, but despite his disgust he nevertheless felt the hard leap of desire. For even though their existence destroyed any future between them, he was not hypocritical enough to deny that they were magnificent photographs. ‘You think that there is any acceptable explanation for that?’ he snapped.

‘It isn’t—’

But his rage was such that he barely heard her. ‘On the head of my camel you are a magnificent actress— I commend you for that! You have succeeded in fooling me. And you have lied to me,’ he added bitterly, remembering the way she had told him that she was a virgin—and that she loved him.

‘I did not lie to you! I just…’ She looked at him and shrugged her shoulders helplessly. ‘Couldn’t think of the right time to tell you.’

‘But there would never have been a right time! In my culture, such conduct from the consort to the Sheikh would be utterly repellent—surely you must have known that?’

Sienna stared at him. Of course she had. Was that another reason why she had buried it away? As if by doing that she could pretend it had never happened? So that she wouldn’t have to face the repercussions of her actions? Could carry on living in her little fantasy world with Hashim—untouched by the past and untroubled by the future? But had she ever imagined that the outcome would be any different from this? That there would be some magical, fairy-tale solution despite what she’d done?

No. Hashim would never forgive her.

The reality of seeing the contempt in his black eyes

was almost too much to bear, and Sienna stood up and picked up her shoes, her hair falling down over her face, concealing her pain from him.

But she paused by the door, lifting her gaze to his, unable to suppress the tiny flicker of hope which stubbornly refused to die.

‘Is that it, then, Hashim? Is it…over?’

‘Over?’ His mouth hardened, for he wanted to wound her. To hurt her as she had hurt him. To destroy her dreams as she had destroyed his. ‘I think you forget yourself. Did you ever expect that it would be anything other than a very temporary diversion?’ he questioned imperiously. ‘For I am the Sheikh and you are but a commoner.’ His made his final thrust. ‘A true commoner.’

CHAPTER THREE

HOW painful the past could be.

But as the mists of memory cleared, and Sienna looked into Hashim’s steely black eyes, the pain came flooding back as if the years in between had never happened.

She remembered the way she had stumbled from his suite that evening, the tears beginning to slip from beneath her eyelids. Somehow she had made it home and howled into her pillow like a wounded animal. She had never known that it was possible to cry that much. Or to hurt that much. To be revolted by the thought of food and want only to sleep—but sleep had never seemed to come, and when it had, it mocked her with images of the dark face she had grown to love so much.