The Sheikh's Claim

“It’s enough.” He dug his fingers into her prim chignon, setting her raven silk free, burying his face in its luxury. “It’s what we have, what we need, what we can’t fight.”

She pulled up his head by his hair. “It won’t change a thing.”

She held his focus. She was setting terms for this encounter. That it would only be physical? Or that it would be a one-off?

He refused to concede. “It will. It will stop this need from gnawing us hollow. Now admit it. You’ve been dying to have me again as I’ve been dying to have you. You’ll give me everything as you always did, let me give you everything you’ve always begged for, everything we’ve always had together.”

After a long moment, she nodded. Then with sooty lashes lowered to hide her expression, she dragged his mouth back to hers.

He growled his relief inside her as her tongue tangled with his, dueling, demanding, allowing him all the licenses he needed, taking her pleasure from him as she always did, her fervor and boldness intensifying his, her hunger and warmth and taste flowing in his lifeblood.

One hand harnessed her by her hair’s tether as one of hers did him by his as he undid her blouse and skirt, swept them off her velvet flesh. Her other hand trembled at his zipper as he snapped open her bra, spilling her breasts. He swallowed her cry of relief, of spiking arousal, as he settled his aching flesh on top of hers, rubbing against her until she begged.

“Do everything to me, Jalal. Fill me, ride me now, now.’’

He rose to tear her panties off her hips, probe her satiny folds. His fingers slid in her flowing need, until she undulated against him in a frenzy. When he couldn’t stand one more heartbeat outside her heat and yearning, she clamped her thighs around his back, writhing in the grips of the same fever to merge. Then he plunged inside her.

She screamed with the shock of his invasion. She was as impossibly tight as ever, their fit still almost unmanageable, their pleasure excruciating. She arched, smashing herself against him with the mindless need for his domination. Overwhelmed with feeling, his girth gripped inside the molten pleasure that was her essence, he groaned her name and withdrew, only to plunge again, then again, forging deeper with every penetration. His escalations rocked her beneath him, wringing sharper cries from her depths. She met his thrusts, strengthening them, her demands for him to give it all to her tearing away any restraint he’d still clung to.

Their coupling was primal, savage. They groped and bit and thrust in ever-roughening abandon, nothing existing but the need to soothe the pangs that had long maddened them, to burn in a conflagration of release.

The first clench of her orgasm hit him like a sledgehammer. Her core clamped around his shaft with such force, he tore his lips from hers to roar at the unendurable spike in pleasure. Then she heaved beneath him, her intimate flesh tightening around his erection, singeing him with the rush of her satisfaction, wrenching his own from the depth of his loins. His body felt as if it was detonating with the force of his own climax as he released inside her, feeling he was pouring his life force into her.

Ecstasy finally relinquished its merciless grip and her strangled cries died into whimpers as aftershocks sparked and lurched through both of them.

He sank on top of her, oblivious to anything but her body cushioning him, her chaotic heartbeats echoing his as their systems struggled to recover from the exertion of their explosive lovemaking.

He might have slept. Or passed out. For a minute. Or an hour. All he knew was that he was coming back with a start into a body that was leaden with an excess of fulfillment. Then a move beneath him had him jerking up. Lujayn. He must have crushed her.

He groaned, then louder with the ache of separation, as he uncoupled from her with great regret. He bent to kiss her, but she scooted away from his touch. His heart clenched as she swayed up and sat at the edge of the bed, long hair tumbled, her body still and stiff.

He was reaching a caressing hand to her again when she turned her face and the look in her eyes halted the gesture of tenderness in midmotion. And that was before she spoke.

“I hate you, Jalal. When I’ve never hated anyone. So consider this the validation or the goodbye or whatever sex you think I owed you. It’s never happening again.”

She got up like an automaton. In seconds she disappeared inside the bathroom.

He stared at the closed door, heart booming, mind churning.

One thing that had been erased had been resurrected. His confidence in his ownership of her body. If he went after her now, he’d have her begging for him again. But her antipathy seemed to be real. He had no idea what he had done to earn it. But whatever she thought he had done might change everything. It might explain why she’d left him.

It was almost an hour before she exited the bathroom glowing, remote and dressed. He’d also dressed. He knew their mindless interlude should not be repeated. Not until he knew what was going on.

He stood there as she stopped before him, eyes devoid of expression. “I’m sorry I said I hate you. It’s not true.”

His heart unfurled from the tight knot it had become, the broken pieces mending. Something warm fluttered inside it as he moved closer.

Her next words froze it solid, shot it down like a bullet would a bird in flight.

“It’s worse than that. I hate myself when I’m with you. I hate what I do, what I think, what I feel. What I am. Patrick taught me that I’m better than that—that I don’t have to ever feel this way again. I was certain I’d never do this. But you’re like an incurable disease. One exposure, and I relapse. There’s only one way I’ll stop being reinfected. I won’t let you come near me again. If you try, I’ll make you regret it.”

The lash of her antipathy sliced open the dam of his accumulated, if briefly forgotten, bitterness.

He moved away from her, as if to escape the searing disappointment, heard himself taunting, “You mean more than I already regret coming here and exposing myself to your virulence again? Not possible. So save your threats and theatrics, Lujayn. It will be a snowy day in my ‘backward region’ before I come near you again.”

He didn’t only regret coming after her—he despised his stupidity for being unable to hate her, even now, for succumbing to his weakness, taking her right in her marital bed, then not being the one who came to his senses first, or at all.

At the door he turned, and the look on her face had his heartache boiling over. It wasn’t just over, she didn’t only hate him now—she always had.

It had been an illusion, a sham.

More harshness spilled from his lips, the only shield he found so the icy shards of her rejection wouldn’t hack his heart to pieces all over again. “Thanks, by the way. You gave me exactly what I came for. The certainty that you’re not worth another thought. Now I can delete you from my memory.”

He walked away then, the relief that this retaliation had provided already evaporating, despondence seeping in its place, settling into his recesses. For it was another lie. No matter that he now knew nothing they’d shared had been real, he knew the memory of her would never relinquish its hold over him….

Two

The present

“…the memory of this day will burn bright for the rest of my days, with the blessing and wonder of your love and belief, your very existence. I, Haidar Aal Shalaan, pledge my life to you, Roxanne, owner of my heart …”

Jalal hit Pause, his chest tight as he watched the power of love radiating from the two faces frozen on the screen.

He’d never believed in miracles. But there was no denying he’d watched one unfold in real time. Had been replaying it on video over and over again. His twin’s wedding ceremony. He’d watched that specific part, when they’d made their unrehearsed vows, for the umpteenth time. Today.

Each time had only ratcheted up his reaction to the sight of Haidar staring with such profound adoration into the eyes of his weeping bride, of hearing him, then her, commit to a lifetime of unity and allegiance, body and soul.

He was fiercely happy for both of them. The twin who felt like an extension of his own life force, and the woman who felt of his own flesh and blood, too. But seeing them, feeling them, bound together in abiding love forever, inflicted something besides joy. It made him feel even more acutely that gaping emptiness in his core. One he knew would never be filled.

He’d once thought he’d had a chance of having something approaching what Haidar and Roxanne had. With Lujayn, the one woman he’d wanted with all he had. But even when they’d been lost to passion in each other’s arms, he’d felt something missing. Now he knew what it was. That. That connection. That alliance. That totality of acceptance, agreement and appreciation.

The extent of the deficiency had been driven home to him during the past years as his brothers had found their soul mates. But it had taken Haidar and Roxanne to solidify the realization. He’d now seen and felt what completeness was like.

He hadn’t had anything like it with Lujayn. But then how could he have? It took two to progress to that level of intimacy. She’d been unwilling to move beyond a certain threshold. She hadn’t wanted intimacy, she’d wanted wealth and status.

He saw that now. At the time he’d thought any issues had been due to the intermittent nature of their relationship, dictated by their hectic schedules and living on different sides of the world. But the truth had been that, beyond sex, she hadn’t really wanted him. She’d only wanted him to propose.

He’d bet she would have kept trying if another opportunity, almost as big a catch, hadn’t presented itself.

He hit Stop. The screen went black—as black as his thoughts.

He wouldn’t see it again. There was no point in replaying the living, breathing example of what he’d never have. He’d have a lifetime of experiencing it in real life.

He rose and threw down the remote. It took him seconds to get his bearings, to remember where this sitting room opened onto the veranda. He’d rented so many houses in the past two years that he regularly woke up not knowing immediately where he was, or even in which country.

Ever since his mother’s conspiracy had been exposed and the scandal had rocked the region, he’d been roaming the globe. His father and half brothers, Amjad, Harres and Shaheen, insisted that no one associated Haidar and him to her crimes. But he felt tainted by them anyway. He’d felt worse when he’d clashed with Haidar over that mess, and ended up placing the lion’s share of the blame on him. He’d driven Haidar to say he felt he no longer had a twin.

That breach had been resolved, thankfully, and he no longer felt sundered forever from his other half. But though he felt whole now that their relationship was regaining the closeness they’d once shared as children, that wholeness was still … hollow.

He walked across the marble-spread veranda and stopped at the cut-stone balustrade, looking out at the desert to a horizon that seemed farther away than ever.

What was he doing here?

Why was he trying to claim the throne of this land?

So it was up for grabs after the now former king of Azmahar, his maternal uncle, had abdicated after a public outcry and all his heirs had met with the same rejection. Just as his mother had almost destroyed Zohayd, her family had taken Azmahar to the edge of destruction, too. He’d thought he’d be lumped in with his maternal family as the last people Azmahar would want near the throne again. So he’d been shocked when those representing a third of the kingdom’s population had demanded he be their candidate. They’d insisted he wasn’t tainted by his family’s history and had the power and experience to save Azmahar. Even his Aal Munsoori blood was an asset, since people still considered the bloodline their rightful monarchs. But he had the potent advantage of mixing it with the Aal Shalaan blood, which would win them back their vital ally, Zohayd.

Still, why was he running for the throne? So he knew he was qualified for the position. But he also knew that he could swim among sharks, literally. He’d done it before. But that didn’t mean he should—and running for the position of king in such a chaotic land was worse than braving shark-infested waters. Not to mention the minefield of being pitted against his twin and his former-best-friend-turned-nemesis, Rashid.

He could find one real reason. Because if he didn’t do this, what else was there to do?

He’d exiled himself from Zohayd, had been performing from afar the royal duties his brothers hadn’t taken over in his absence. He’d installed such an efficient system to run his business empire, it took him only a few hours a day to orchestrate its almost self-perpetuating success. And he had no personal life. Apart from a few good-but-not-close friends, he had no one.

Sure, his family insisted he had them, and he supposed he did, in the big-picture sense, but on a daily basis? His family back in Zohayd he seldom saw. And he now had his twin back, but only in an emotional sense. As a newlywed and another candidate for the throne, Haidar had no real time for him.

No wonder he felt empty. As vacant as this desert, with as nonexistent a possibility for change.

An insistent noise broke the stillness of his surroundings. He frowned down at its origin. His cell phone.

It took him seconds to recognize the ring, one he’d assigned to a specific person. Fadi Aal Munsoori. A distant cousin, and the head of his security and his campaign for the throne.

Though Fadi came from the one branch of Jalal’s family on his mother’s side that he considered “family,” Fadi himself had never considered he had any relation to the former royal family of Azmahar. Fadi’s father had maintained marginal relations with them, but Fadi had renounced the relationship completely, not to mention publicly and viciously. The moment they’d been deposed, he’d pounced on the tribes he had influence over, had been the one who’d orchestrated their nomination of Jalal for king.

But even as the one he trusted with his life, his business, his campaign and even his secrets, Fadi had never accepted Jalal’s efforts to form a more personal relationship. Jalal insisted he was foremost a friend, but Fadi behaved like a knight of old with Jalal as his liege. He only ever called him when there was something urgent to convey or to discuss.

He almost wished Fadi would hit him with something huge to deal with, to get him out of this vacuum.

“Fadi, so good to hear from you.”

Not one to indulge in niceties, Fadi got to the point, his deep voice pouring its usual solemn gravity into Jalal’s ear.

“Considering you have not renewed my orders concerning this matter, or asked about any developments in the past two years, you may not be interested in what I have to tell you. But I decided to let you know in case you still are.”

Jalal’s gut tightened. This didn’t sound like something that concerned his business, his personal safety or his campaign. There was only one other thing Fadi had ever taken care of for him. One person he’d entrusted him with keeping tabs on. Lujayn.

It seemed he hadn’t groaned her name mentally but out loud, for Fadi said, “Yes, this is about Lujayn Morgan.”

The desert wind suddenly stirred, as if in response to the questions and temptations that stormed through him.

He’d been holding himself back with all he had so that he wouldn’t “renew Fadi’s orders” or “ask about any developments.” And he’d succeeded. At least he’d managed not to seek her out, or learn news of her, thereby renewing his exposure and losing any hard-won closure.

The sane thing to do now was to leave Fadi certain that his orders concerning her were at an end. That he was not to even report any information that came his way by accident.

At his prolonged silence, Fadi exhaled. “I apologize for presuming you would be interested.”

And he did the one insane thing. Heartbeat spiraling out of control, he growled, “B’haggej’ jaheem, ya rejjal, just tell me.”

His bark silenced Fadi instead. Fadi, like everyone else, believed Jalal was the epitome of sangfroid. While this was mostly true, control and Lujayn had always been mutually exclusive.

He could almost hear Fadi’s miss-nothing mind clicking on the new conclusion before he finally said, “She is back in Azmahar.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out you were in Azmahar?”

Lujayn pulled away the cell phone to groan at hearing a voice she’d come back here hoping to avoid.

Aliyah’s.

She and Aliyah had once thought they were cousins, with both their fathers belonging to the Irish-American Morgan clan. But Aliyah’s mother, Princess Bahiyah Aal Shalaan, had turned out to be her flesh and blood aunt, with Aliyah actually the daughter of now-ex-King Atef Aal Shalaan of Zohayd from his American lover, and now new wife, Anna Beaumont.

It had been years since Aliyah had been declared an Aal Shalaan and become the wife of King Kamal Aal Masood and the queen of Judar. Quite a change from the minor royalty she’d been when Lujayn had known her.

But while their false family relationship had introduced them to each other, they had become true friends when Lujayn had followed Aliyah’s footsteps in modeling. Aliyah had offered her unfailing guidance and priceless support, steered her from many a mess and hooked her up with the few people it was safe to know in that turbulent world.

Aliyah had also been the reason she’d met Jalal, back when they’d thought she was a cousin to them both. Now that they knew Aliyah was his half sister, there was an even bigger chance she might pull Lujayn into Jalal’s orbit once more. That was why she’d been avoiding her. That and the fathomless joy Aliyah radiated ever since she’d gotten married.

“So what is an appropriate punishment for you, now that I’ve caught you in Azmahar unannounced?” Aliyah’s vibrant voice teased.

Lujayn wasn’t about to confess to the woman who’d shown her unforgettable kindness when she’d most needed it that she’d been avoiding her because she inadvertently made her feel bad about her life and because she didn’t want to risk seeing Jalal.

So she told her what she felt, free of pettiness and anxieties. “I missed you, too, Aliyah.”

Aliyah let out a laugh as clear and tinkling as crystal. “And here she is. The woman who knows just how to thwart me and still leave me with a smile on my face. You’re more slippery than an eel, you know that? I hear it’s an Azmaharian trait.”

A smile pried Lujayn’s stiff lips apart. It had been an endless source of fun among them to compare notes on their “hybrid” nature. “Since I’m only half-Azmaharian, the trait must be diluted, so I can’t be that slippery.”

Aliyah hooted. “My dear, you’re talking to a bona fide halfling. Being half-and-half only augments any traits we inherit from each side. Just ask Kamal.”

And there it was. The woman was unable to form five consecutive sentences without leading back to her husband and love of her life.

She knew she was being pathetic, but it wasn’t just hearing the wealth of love in Aliyah’s voice. She’d seen them together, alone and with their two children. Seeing and feeling that lion of a man’s fierce love and devotion to Aliyah had been amazing, but it was also evidence that such passion existed—and that she would never have anything like it.

“So how long are you in Azmahar?” Aliyah interrupted her darkening thoughts. “Last time you were here was more than four years ago and you stayed less than four days.”

“I don’t know, Aliyah. It depends on my aunt’s health.”

“Suffeyah?” All levity left Aliyah’s voice, alarm replacing it. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s been diagnosed with breast cancer.”

“Oh, Lujayn, I’m so sorry. Bring her over to Judar. We have one of the best medical systems in the world, thanks to Kamal. I’ll see to it that she has the best health care the kingdom can offer.”

“I can’t thank you enough for the offer, Aliyah, but I have to decline it. I tried to make her come to the States, but she refuses to leave her daughters behind for the months the treatments might take. One is a senior in high school and the other just had twins.”

“I understand all too well putting your kids before yourself. But Azmahar isn’t in good shape and I understand one of the sectors suffering most is health care.”

Lujayn’s heart constricted at Aliyah’s words. “I know. But Aunt insists she’ll take her chances with the medical care here like any other Azmaharian would. All I could do was arrange for a consult with some of the best doctors in the States. I’m flying them over in a couple days. We’ll take it from there.”

“That’s great. And if what they recommend can’t be carried out in Azmahar, I’ll provide you with medicine, equipment and personnel. If she won’t come to us, we’ll bring the best of Judar to her.”

“Oh, Aliyah, that is beyond anything I could have hoped for.”

“But you didn’t hope for anything, did you? You have this infuriating thing against a helping hand from a friend.”

Lujayn exhaled. Aliyah was right. Being the daughter of a servant in the palace Aliyah had grown up in had been enough. She hadn’t wanted to tip the balance of their situations more by accepting favors she’d be unable to repay. She’d only accepted Aliyah’s help when Aliyah had insisted it was the fruit of her experience, nothing to do with her royal status.

Even now she had nothing of equal value to ever offer Aliyah. That made it impossible for her to be the recipient of favors that had everything to do with Aliyah’s status.

“I can hear your mind churning, Lu,” Aliyah said. “But since it’s not you on the receiving end this time, it should ameliorate your allergic reaction. Now promise you won’t say no, and you’ll let me do what I can when needed.”

She chuckled even as tears rushed to her eyes. “I forgot how well you know me, Aliyah. And about this pesky total recall of yours. And just how incredible you are.” She sighed, swallowing the lump of emotion. “Thank you, and I promise.”

“Good girl!” She could just see Aliyah’s unbridled smile. “Now when will I see you?”

Ugh. Now she had to make another promise.

But why not? She knew it would be beyond either of them to keep this one. She doubted the queen of Judar would find it feasible to continue a friendship with someone of her background.

She exhaled. “As soon as we know more about the plans for Aunt, I’ll call you to set up a girls’ day out.”

Aliyah whooped. “And I’m holding you to that.”

After more chatting, Lujayn started to regain the fluency they’d once shared, until Aliyah had to rush to extract her daughter from a literally sticky mess and laughingly bade her adieu.

Lujayn collapsed on the nearest seat. If she was already coming apart, what would the next weeks or months here be like?

It was just her terrible luck to come back to Azmahar now, with Jalal on Azmaharian soil for the first time in years. She hated being in the same airspace as him. And Aliyah’s call had made her feel as if his shadow was closer and darker than ever.

Which was moronic. Not only had he said he’d delete her from his memory, he had a throne to think of. Even if he hadn’t, she’d be the last thing to cross his mind. She’d been the last thing he’d thought about or considered when she’d been his sex partner. She’d been one of many, after all.

He’d arranged their rendezvouses when it had been convenient for him, sometimes weeks apart, and no way had he suppressed his overriding libido that long. She’d spent the times apart alternating between a hell of doubt, and telling herself it was only her insecurities talking. But she’d seen and heard too much proof that instead of “storing his hunger to be expended on her luscious self” as he’d once claimed, he’d had a different body in his bed every night.