To Tame a Sheikh (Pride of Zohayd 1)

Her heart constricted. Her vision blurred.

And she choked out her pledge. “I will always love you, ya habibi.”

He sighed in his sleep, his lips curving in contentment.

Even though she was across the room, she thought he said, “I love you, too, my Gemma.”

Tears poured thicker, as if they were flowing from her heart. She closed the door and walked away from his room and out of his penthouse. Out of his life.

She felt as if hers was over.

Four

The moment he opened his eyes, Shaheen knew something was wrong. Wonderfully wrong.

He was…serene.

He remained still, closed his eyes again, to savor the alien sensation of absolute contentment.

Yes. Alien. He’d never felt like this, even on his best days.

He’d always been aware of all he had to be thankful for, had never taken any of his privileges for granted. He’d accepted the prices he had to pay for them, had even considered the payments and the load they placed on his shoulders more privileges. He’d reveled in all the challenges and hardships that making use of those privileges had dictated.

What he’d never been as fond of were the constraints they placed on his choices, the frustration he encountered when bowing to their demands meant doing less than what he thought was right.

Usually he relegated those limitations to the back of his mind, but they were still there, a source of constant tension.

There was not a trace of that now. He felt something he’d only ever experienced partially, had never imagined feeling in full. Peace. Permeating. Absolute.

And it was because of her.

Gemma. Even her name was perfection. Everything he’d felt from her, seen of her, had with her had been that. And the wonder of it seemed to have wiped him clean of all that had come before her. That he had to exert conscious effort to remember anything but her was amazing. One night with her felt like the sum total of his experience in life.

He stretched, humming to the tune of satisfaction and elation that strummed through him.

So this was passion. He hadn’t felt anything like it before. He’d known passion for commitment, for success, for details, he felt love for his family, had felt mild and ephemeral interest in some women. But he’d never imagined anything so encompassing, so consuming. From the moment he’d laid eyes on her, his feelings had engulfed him whole, had overwhelmed his reason and control. Not that what he felt went against either. She satisfied the first and he felt no need to employ the second. Being with her had emptied him of tension and inhibition, had freed him to focus his all on the wonder of being with her, experiencing her, savoring every moment with her.

He did feel he’d known her all his life.

And now he couldn’t imagine his life without her. The life she’d derailed. And righted.

He sighed deeply as images and sensations of the previous night and early morning cascaded through his mind and body.

He had taken her as if he’d been craving her all his life. He hadn’t even been able to stop when he’d found he’d been her first. Or later, when he’d told himself he wouldn’t do it again that night. But she’d again hijacked his sense and control…

Suddenly unease slithered through him, unraveling his surreal state of bliss.

He’d approached her, taken her, as if he was free to make his own choices and pursue his own destiny. And he wasn’t.

How had he forgotten that for a minute, let alone a night?

But he had forgotten. Totally. And he remembered now.

Dammit, no. It made no difference what was demanded—no, needed—of him. There was no way he could blindly point at a bride from the royal catalogue now.

He had no idea how he’d be able to avoid the arranged marriage, but he would. No matter the pressures or the exigencies. Everything in him demanded that he make Gemma his.

He foresaw an epic battle.

He wiped both hands over his face, bunched them in his hair, pulled with a steady, stinging tension as if that would counteract the pressure building inside him.

What a mess.

But what a delight, too.

On the heels of visualizing the upcoming strife, images of her, of them together, conversing, caressing, joined, filled his mind again. In a balance where all the troubles he had piling ahead were weighed against being with Gemma, there was absolutely no contest. Claiming her outweighed the whole world.

He sat up, swung his legs off the bed. He ran his hands over the place where she’d slept—or at least lain—in between their lovemaking sessions. They hadn’t slept until morning, too busy talking and experiencing each other in every way, sensual, sexual, mental. His body, already hard, started to pound at him in demand for her.

He tried to convince it to subside. There was no chance it was having her. Not today. After what he’d done to her—twice—no matter how eager she was, she needed at least a couple of days to recuperate.

He got to his feet. “Gemma?”

Silence. He called again, and this time, when the same absence of any sound or movement answered him, the lips that had twitched at imagining her soaking away the aches of his initiation in his tub tightened with alarm. He rushed to the bathroom, burst through the slightly open door.

He almost slumped to the floor at finding it empty. He was in worse shape than he thought. Being with Gemma had just masked his condition. He’d imagined a dozen macabre scenarios during the minute his calls had met with silence.

She had to be in the kitchen. There was no way she could hear him there. Images of her tousled and glowing from a shower, dressed in one of his shirts or lost in one of his bathrobes filled his mind. And she’d be awkward and swollen in all the places that would make him ache until he could barely speak.

He considered walking to her naked, then pulled on pants. She’d let him expose her to every intimacy, had responded with every fiber of her being, but she was still shy when she wasn’t in the throes of pleasure. He didn’t want to test her more, for now. He’d already rushed her in so many ways. So what if she’d asked him to? That didn’t mean he should be so eager to comply. He was the experienced one here, and he shouldn’t behave like an overeager teenager.

Seconds after this self-lecture, he was almost running to the kitchen. Aih, he would embarrass her again.

The premonition hit him before he stepped into the kitchen. All through his penthouse. The feeling of…emptiness. Absence.

The feeling became fact in seconds. The kitchen was also empty.

He didn’t stop this time. He whirled around and bolted to inspect each room. Nothing.