To Touch a Sheikh (7 page)

When she could finally catch a breath, she spluttered, “You think I want to
marry
you?”

N
o woman had ever considered marrying him.

No matter the wealth and power marriage to him entailed, as he'd once told Shaheen, women feared he'd turn Shahrayar or Othello on them. Their families feared their necks would be next on the block of his crazed wrath.

Their horror and rejection had appeased him to no end.

So why would Maram's incredulous mirth at the idea of marrying him disturb him? Even when he knew she was faking it?

He knew for a fact that she'd marry him, mayhem and madness and all, in a heartbeat. She was the only woman who'd been ballsy enough to not only consider risking it but to also actively pursue it.

The clear answer was that her pretense itself was what bothered him. But that
wasn't
why.

He didn't
want
her to want to marry him…did he?

Of course he didn't. He was tired, sleep-deprived. And she was potent. Enough to make him begin to imagine he…
felt
things, beyond the physical.

He shook his head, deriding himself more than her. “Surely
you don't expect me to answer your stupefaction and let you lead me through another story with your ‘version of the truth'?”

She shook her head, too, still chuckling. “You're a surprise a second, not only a laugh.”

“Always thrilled to be of disservice.” He gave her a mock bow and turned back to coffee making.

He felt the caress of her eyes before she rose, headed to his computer. In seconds a spine-tingling sonata by Mozart surged, filling every inch of space with its majestic magic, seeming to annul the wrath of nature. His heart expanded as the timeless melody spread through him, one of his absolute favorites.

Before questions formed about why she'd chosen that specifically from his playlist, sensations unfurled through him as she joined him in preparing dinner—feelings besides the usual physical red alert from her nearness. Equanimity? Contentment?

Aih.
As if he'd recognize those if they tap-danced on his forehead. Seemed he hadn't estimated her powers highly enough.

During the evening, she again defied his expectations.

She didn't prod him into pursuing his accusations so that she could offer counter-explanations. Instead, she played “Frozen.”

The dark electronic undertones, the Far Eastern strings, the hints of Middle Eastern percussion swept through the air, as if made for their refuge. He felt as if the lyrics became tailored to show him how she saw him, what she wished with him, for him. But that was as far as she communicated.

It was past midnight and he'd slammed on his brakes a dozen times so he wouldn't reopen the subject. He could swear she felt him struggle, was serenely waiting for him to crack.

He didn't. He finished tidying up and went to prepare the settee for another night in sleepless hell.

She stood at the verge of the corridor until he tossed her his best vacant glance. The enigmatic gleam in her eyes corkscrewed through his restraint. He continued working.

She didn't move until he straightened, raised an eyebrow at her. What did this mistress of strategy and seduction want now?

She tucked her rainfall of gold-kissed strands behind one ear, before she gestured toward the bedroom. “Please reclaim your bed. I'll be as comfortable on the settee with my size.”

“No. And before you breed any misconceptions, it isn't an act of chivalry. I won't let you quarantine me inside.”

“You don't have to be quarantined. I'm…well-covered, and I'm a very sound sleeper.”

He could attest to
that.
She, damn her, slept deep and woke up fully charged. While his batteries weren't just running low, they were reversing polarity.

He also wouldn't be exposed to the sight of her as she slept even if she was in a sack from the neck down.
And
he wouldn't sleep in his bed and feel her presence all around him again.

“No,” he said again, offering no more reasons, needing to end this endless day. “But I'll take the bathroom first. Your activities there could be measured on a geological scale.”

He entered the bathroom to the sound of her chuckles, yet again cursing the absence of a door to slam and isolate himself.

He sought refuge in the shower cubicle. It offered none. He could swear he felt her thoughts, her desire trickling down his aching flesh like fondling hands and lips until his body reached critical mass. And it had nothing to do with long abstinence. Had it been any other woman, he wouldn't have registered her presence. But Maram was setting aflame both his urges and his imagination.

He rested his forehead on the cool tiles, closed his eyes as the water pounded him, and silently sought relief.

Release came almost at once, another of the countless ones fueled by her image. More than ever, it made no difference to his aroused state. The expenditure of a measure of tension seemed to open floodgates to a hunger he'd never experienced, even on her account.

It had been one thing to fantasize about her while he avoided her, but another to surrender to the lust she'd stoked by coming closer to him than anyone had ever had.

Not that it mattered. As he always had, he would hold back.

 

By the fourth day, Amjad couldn't hold back anymore.

Morning had started normally enough. If anything in their situation could be called “normal.” After lunch, he'd decided to clean, although between them, they'd kept the place spotless. He needed to do something physical. He'd already exercised, strenuously, which had only escalated his tension when she'd come to watch him, then joined him.

She'd joined him in cleaning, too, with her usual zeal, not questioning that the place didn't need it. She'd initiated another debate as they finished the sitting area, and they were continuing it across the cabin, he from the bathroom, she from the kitchen.

Her voice carried over the storm's hubbub and his racket. He now seemed to tune out anything not on her merry, modulated wavelengths.

“If all men, especially princely gods of finance, are doomed for avaricious, cold-blooded women with the wiles and witchcraft to land them, how do you explain your brothers?”

“You want to know how they came into existence?” he called back as he polished the mirror for the third time, trying to delay rejoining her. “Incidentally, they—and I of course—did spring forth from avaricious, cold-blooded women.”

He heard the clang of pots as she giggled. “Tut, tut. Is that any way to talk about your mother?”

“
And
my stepmother. Just stating facts. To check those, I'll refer you to sources who can best back up my assessments.”

“Foremost among those sources would be your father, of course. But his testimony would be skewed in his favor and against theirs. I would have to hear more unbiased sources—and the women's side—before sanctioning any ‘facts.'”

He rinsed and dried the sink again. “In my mother's case, you need a séance, and a powerful witch to stop her from expelling your soul and commandeering your body. In my stepmother's, you need a warding spell to keep her from ripping you open and feeding on your entrails.”

The beauty of her bwa-ha-ha lanced through him. He forced
himself to rearrange his shaving kit again, glaring at himself in the mirror, trying to force the silly smile off his face.

When he was able to cloak himself in his usual venomous smirk, he walked back to the main area. He found her with her hair up in a high bun impaled with a pencil, tendrils escaping to rain over her flushed face, her sleeves and pants rolled up as she mopped the floor in her utilitarian desert-friendly sneakers. She could have been in five-inch stilettos, thong and push-up bra with the way the sight had hormones thundering through his system.

He ignored his stampeding senses, strolled into the kitchen, started brewing coffee. “According to new evidence your own mother is also a variant of virulent female lifeform.”

She chuckled and recorded her objection to his jaded evaluation by mopping extra hard around his feet. “My mother neither ripped out anyone's soul nor fed on anyone's entrails. When I add up my life, where the pros far outweigh the cons, I come out believing she did what she thought was best for me.”

He raised one foot after the other for her to mop beneath, giving her a pitying look. “I'll believe you believe that Mother's Day absolutionist crap when we ski on ice in this desert.”

She riddled his vision in the dazzle of her smile. “You
still
didn't explain your brothers. Shaheen risked exile and dispossession and Harres defied customs and made many powerful new enemies to be with the women they loved. From all reports they would have happily sacrificed everything.”

He exhaled at the reminder. “Shaheen is a romantic dolt and Harres's brain is irreversibly fried from a combination of gunshot injury, sunstroke and prolonged fearless-female exposure. We'll see how they feel after the honeymoon period is over, and what their deified wives will turn into after a few years and kids.”

“You're certain they'll turn into succubi, too, huh?”

He nodded. “But even if my brothers deserve it for being such wishful idiots, I hope they don't get what's coming to them.”

She gave a semi-snort of delight. “Such an outpouring of oldest brotherly love.”

“I know. I'm a big softie.”

She raised twinkling-with-glee eyes from an imaginary tough spot. “What about Aliyah? With two kids already, she has broken the barrier of the enchanted honeymoon period. I've seen it for myself that she and Kamal are more deliriously in love than ever.”

He gave an exaggerated shudder. “Don't remind me. Seeing Kamal of all men turn into this tail-wagging puppy around Aliyah gives me night sweats. It's positively creepy.”

“And of course you can't factor in that she makes him happy and fulfilled, and he finds no reason to turn on his suspicious, ruthless software around her.”

He brooded at her as she turned and her hair suddenly expelled the pencil holding it up. Its coil unraveled, its swish sweeping through his nerves, the settling silk seeming to brush against every one of them. And he had to admit it.

She'd won.

She'd resisted all his indirect attempts to make her broach the one subject he wanted her to tackle. Now the need to hear another story burned a hole in his gut.

He couldn't hold back anymore, goaded her, directly. “Don't you think bringing up those examples of matrimonial bliss is too transparent? If I could be, I'd be insulted you think such obvious tactics can aid you in your mission of acquiring me as a husband.”

She turned, eyes acknowledging his capitulation, her triumph.

For heart-pounding moments, he thought she'd ignore his blatant prodding.

Then she rested her chin on both hands on top of the mop, quirked her lips. “Out of the mildest curiosity, where did you get the idea that I want to marry you?”

He almost groaned in relief.

Thanking her inwardly for taking pity on him when her eyes told him he deserved none, he shrugged. “Oh, I don't know. Maybe from your constant pursuit ever since that accursed conference.”

She gave him a cheerful glance as she walked away to store the mop. “You got my interest all wrong. You can rest dry at night knowing that marrying you has never crossed my mind.”

“
Aih.
And your father will fly.”

A laugh trilled from her lips, even as her eyes all but smacked his derriere with that reproach that reminded him that, while she reveled in his caustic humor, it wasn't fully appreciated when it splattered her father.

“But don't take it personally,” she mock placated. “In your famous words, been there, done that. Marriage is anathema to me now, just as you consider it up there with contracting a new ‘virulent variant' of the plague.”

When she didn't seem about to add more, he handed her her mug of coffee, prodded again, “So you don't want me as a husband?”

“Definitely and irrevocably not.” She sipped her coffee, gave that tiny, maddening moan of appreciation. Just when he thought she'd leave him hanging with no “story,” her gaze suddenly bathed him in something she'd never exposed him to. The full force of her solemnity. “But I want
you.
”

It felt like an endless moment before he could retrip the speech fuses blown by the intensity of her words. “As a sex partner?”

Her lashes fluttered down as if the description jarred her. They swept up again, revealing eyes simmering with so many meanings and emotions. “Among other things.”

“What other things? What else could I be to you? A trophy? A sponsor? A watchdog? A bouncer?”

Her lips twitched again. “You'd be superlative at all of the above, but nope, I have no need of any of those. Though if you have to have names for what I have in mind for you, I can come up with dozens, starting with sparring partner and passing by mental stimulator, vitality booster and stress reliever all the way to—” her gaze poured scalding desire down his body to the part she'd visually spanked minutes earlier “—lap dancer.”

He felt his bones vibrate with every role's impact on his
imagination, with the need to haul her off her feet and demonstrate each one's duties to the full.

She suddenly switched back to seriousness. “I wasn't bringing up matrimonial examples, but passionate connections that work, that provide the partners with what nothing else could. That those couples chose to put their connection within the socially acceptable frame of marriage is their business. We both tried marriage and know it doesn't work. Not for us. But I believe we can and would work, in every way that pleases and suits us both. We're both now in a situation where we can take whatever we want together, with no regard to the demands our culture and status once made on us that spoiled my life and almost ended yours.”