The Sheikh's Claim (Desert Nights 2)

“Then your mother validated all my suspicions and far more—and you kept proving her right. I despised myself, escalating those feelings every day because of the way I let you treat me, and I still couldn’t quit you. Then I really started hating what I had become when I kept inventing quarrels with you, hoping to nudge you into addressing the issues that were poisoning me. I was too much of a coward to face you with them, out of fear that you’d just shrug and say, ‘If this bothers you, tough,’ and walk away. So I started to self-destruct. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, kept obsessing over every day you didn’t call, every minute you stayed away. I lost weight and jobs. I was on the verge of losing my mind. And I didn’t have any support system to fall back on, since I’d shut everyone out. I felt I had to choose between being with them or being with you.

“I chose you, and lost everything. The one person I had left, the only one I could talk to, was Patrick. And he stepped in and gave me the support I needed to save myself.”

And she fell silent. He knew she had no more to say.

She’d said enough.

He threw back his head against the couch, closed his eyes, suppressing the chaos that threatened to tear him apart, soul and psyche.

Finally he opened his eyes, rose and walked to her, holding her raw, stormy gaze. Then he went down on his knees before her again.

He gently aborted her jerk to get away, taking her hands in his. “You should have told me everything long ago. What I have to say is not much, but it’s all I have, for now.

“I can’t begin to describe my shame and regret at what my mother stole of your childhood and family life, what she told you about me and the cost to both of us. But I was never party to her manipulations, was never tainted by her snobbery. I was never ashamed of you—I was the very opposite, and this had nothing to do with the secrecy I imposed on our relationship. I thought there would be only losses and trouble if the world knew what we had.

“I also thought we had the perfect arrangement, the best of all worlds. We were young, were building our careers and we had each other. I didn’t think there was anything more than that to dream of. I was ignorant of the true history between our families, didn’t realize you came to our relationship with baggage and insecurities and bitterness. But I should have realized something was deeply wrong when you started flaring up, shouldn’t have rationalized it because I was content with the way things were. At the time, I did think you appreciated the secrecy as much as I did for your family’s conservative sensibilities, and so you wouldn’t be dragged into the crosshairs of the paparazzi who hounded me. I welcomed having those women on my arm because they diverted attention from you, kept you safe. But I was yours alone, Lujayn....” Something still stopped him from admitting that he’d never stopped being hers, would never stop. “And I believed you were mine. That’s why I went out of my mind when you left me for Patrick. Anything I did with him, anything I said to you, was fueled by my pain and jealousy. I was blind and I hurt you just the same as if I’d meant to. And for that, I will never forgive myself, will do anything so you can have the peace I robbed you of all these years.”

Her features trembled and she pitched forward to bury her face in her hands, ended up pressing it into their entwined fingers. Her flesh, her tears, singed him, had him groaning, dragging her to his chest. She burrowed her face into him, rubbing against him like a cat desperate for her human’s feel and affection, her lips over his heart.

His hands felt like they didn’t belong to him as they fumbled his shirt buttons open, needing that touch like he needed his next heartbeat. Her moan against his flesh as those petal-soft lips crushed their lushness into him was a bolt of pure emotion and carnality, striking him dead center through his being.

His fingers tangled into her silken tresses, dug into her scalp, shaping her beloved head. Her moans grew longer, louder, confessing her equal upheaval as she opened her lips and the wet heat of her tongue scalded him. That simmering state of arousal she had him in by just existing, that had been hovering on the verge of igniting with her nearness, exploded into a conflagration that consumed him body and soul.

He crushed her to him, the starved for feel of her sending his senses spiraling beyond retrieval. He took all he could of her worshipping, before a hand at her nape raised her to him, brought her roving, tormenting lips up to his, bit down into the lower one, almost breaking the inner flesh in his urgency. His teeth held there as he trembled all over like she did, with the effort of holding back. Her cry razed through him as she opened fully to him, her ripe breasts pressing into his chest, demanding his domination. He laved away his bite, thrust his tongue inside her, draining her sweetness and whimpers of pleasure. His kisses grew wrenching as he pushed away her jacket, dipped beneath her blouse to spread his hands over the scorching velvet of her back, arching her against him.

He poured his demand, his plea, his confession, into her depths. “Wahashtini ya’yooni, bejnoon. Guleeli ya rohi, wahashtek? Tebghini kamma abghaki?”

“Yes, Jalal, yes…I’ve been going insane with missing you, craving you, too. How I missed you—how I crave you....”

That was all he needed. The license to claim her, reclaim them both from the desert they’d existed in without the other’s passion and fulfillment.

In one movement, he was on his feet with his woman in his arms. But when he neared the room’s door she gasped, wriggled. His lips buried into her neck. “We’re alone.”

His reassurance defused her tension, had her resume owning any inch of flesh he’d exposed to her.

In a minute he took her across the threshold of the expansive bedroom suite where he’d lain awake, burning in a hell of deprivation, for the past weeks. Her teeth were scraping his stubble as he placed her on the bed. He straddled her hips and started to rid her of those prim clothes that had been playing havoc with his imagination, had her naked in what felt like a torturous hour. Then he pulled back to look down at her.

Her breasts were a feast, her hips flared with fertility, making her waist look more nipped, her belly no longer flat, but a lush curve, her arms round and firm, her legs long and smooth and honey-hued, her mound plump and trimmed.

He followed all those treasures, in sweeps of wonder. “You robbed me of my sanity from the moment I saw you, when you were nothing like what you’ve become. Now—now I’m in danger of devouring you for real. Ya Ullah, Lujayn…what have you done to yourself? Nothing should be this beautiful.”