ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance (69 page)

“So what’s the restaurant we’re going to?” she asked, as she pulled on her heels.

“The Grill, in Jaffa.”

Her eyes got big: for all its modest name—because there was nothing special about a grill—the Grill was one of the best restaurants in the entire Middle East, holding two Michelin stars. The sultan of the United Arab Emirates was always trying to convince the chef, Alonso Frances, to give up his job and move into the Burj Khalifa.

“Too modest?” he asked, grinning. “I thought about taking you to Ocean’s End but their wait-list is at least three months.”

“No, I—I just never expected—that you’d take me there,” she said, locking her door and following him out to the elevator.

“Why not? I’m a prince, right? What use is a trust fund if you can’t have fun every now and then?”

“You do this with all of the women in your life?”

“I wouldn’t know. You’re the first.”

She flushed, but then she realized what he’d said. “But surely you’ve gone out with women before.”

“Never like this—just the two of us. When I was younger my mother insisted that we have a chaperone, and after I moved to London it was more about getting drunk with friends than romance.”

“How is it that you’ve never found anybody?” she marveled. “Surely it gets lonely?”

“You’re never really alone when you have a bodyguard who’s being paid to shadow you all the time,” he said. She looked over her shoulders as he opened the door of the car for her to get in. “Don’t worry, you won’t see him. Misha’s a pro.”

“Misha?”

“Russian. Big guy. Nice enough.”
When he’s not trying to give life advice.

“So do people really try to assassinate you?”

“If they have it’s the first time I’ve ever heard of it,” he said, starting the engine. The Bugatti roared to life. So did his phone. He looked at it, saw that it was his father, and then turned it off.

“Dating a prince sound dangerous,” she said.

“The only thing dangerous about me is my dad’s disapproval,” he said. “And that’s only if you want to get used to living with a trust fund.”

The sun had set when they started out, and as he drove towards Jaffa the sky deepened to the smooth, even purple of the night. “It’s a lovely sunset,” she sighed. The moon, fat and heavy with the promises of the night, rose fat and heavy above the horizon. The land was reluctant to give off the heat of the day, but even as he handed the car to the valet the first chill had sunk into the breeze. She felt it, too, and she clung to his arm with that much more eagerness as they stepped inside.

The Grill was surprisingly modern inside, the chairs covered in smooth black leather while the tablecloths were crisp white linens. They’d changed the walls since the last time Bashir had been there, from a chevron wallpaper that gave him a headache if he looked at it for it too long, to a washed textured paint this time, in cool blues and purples. They’d also strung little Christmas lights in the ceiling, to give the illusion of being outside, under the stars.

The food was exquisite: oysters on the half-shell, soaking in a mix of their juices and a few drops of lemon juice and whiskey. Tiny globes of sour-apple sorbet, served with the thinnest wafer of chocolate and a smear of marshmallow foam. The wait staff were a bit baffled about the wine, though: officially there was no wine list, and if Bashir had been here with his sister, they’d have denied that there was wine in the house at all.

“I am the prince,” Bashir snapped, after some back-and-forth. “And I wish to have wine. If my soul is in mortal danger for it then that’s my business. Yours is to serve us wine.”

Her lips quirked into an odd little smile. “I don’t like to call attention to the fact that I’m the prince,” Bashir grumbled. “But you’d think that a place like this, which is specifically for wealthy people with foreign tastes, wouldn’t give paying customers so much grief.”

“I was surprised to see that there was a liquor cabinet in the palace,” she said.

“We’re not all as holy as some people think,” Bashir said, as the waiter returned with a dusty, well-aged bottle. “That’s better,” he said.

“It will add another fifty dinars to your bill,” the waiter cautioned, but Bashir waved his concerns aside. Melinda smirked happily.

“I’ll bet you’ve never seen a guy waste that much money on a bottle of wine,” he said, as they resumed their meal.

“Oh, I have,” she said. “I’m just amused that it happens.”

“Amused?”

“That men still seem to think it’s impressive.”

“It is impressive,” he protested. “Do you know how many people the owner likely had to bribe to get this bottle?”

She laughed again. The evening was going well.
What a shame I have to go back to London tomorrow
, he thought, as he caressed her hand across the table. She watched him, a secretive smile playing about her lips.
Long-distance relationships can work
, he thought.
Yes, they can
.
We can make it work if we really wanted to.

He could only hope that the quiet, sultry looks she was giving him meant that she felt the same way.

***

They drove out to the coast after dinner. He felt rather sheepish, not having had anything planned beyond the dinner, but he didn’t anticipate that she’d actually stay interested in him through the main course, never mind dessert. But they had a good time—they laughed, and talked about their favorite movies. Her father, like his, was worried about her marriage prospects. Her mother was still alive, but he had the impression that they were no longer close.

There was always an odd glow on the horizon over the water, a thin scrim of light that seemed to suggest that there was something bigger out there, more glamorous, better. They walked side by side, leaning into each other for warmth as much as for the company, and the reassurance that the other was still there. “I leave for London tomorrow,” he said, as they walked.

“Do you have to?” she asked.

“I need to defend my thesis soon,” he said. “And I have a committee meeting next week.”

“You could stay.”

“You could come with me.”

But somehow, they both knew that he would not stay, and she would not leave. Living their lives for someone else was something they’d both tried, and they both discovered that it could never work. They weren’t ready for the kinds of sacrifices that people made in the name of love, and yet he found himself wondering—maybe, just maybe, he could be ready for this. He’d refused his father’s pleas to take a wife because he’d have been living based on what his father had said was right—but now, he was doing what he felt was right.

He was aware of how silly this all was. Falling in love, this hard and this fast, just wasn’t realistic. This couldn’t be real. And yet, her body was warm against his, and the look in her eyes as they walked on the sand together, letting the warm water kiss their feet, was open and calm.

“It could work,” she said, absently, after a while. So she’d been thinking the same things, too.

“Could it?” he asked. “If I lose my trust fund, it’s going to get a whole lot harder to fly back here.”

“Why would you lose your trust fund?” she began, but then she cut herself off and just shook her head. “The king seems like such a nice guy on the news,” she said.

“He’s as nice as any other man with nearly-unlimited wealth could be,” Bashir said. “And he’s not inclined to forgive the fact that I’ve spurned all of the ‘suitable matches’ he’s found for me over the past few years—and if I bring you home—”

“I don’t want to be a source of contention between you and your father,” she said, quickly.

“You would have been a source of contention anyway,” he said. “Because I chose you, not him. You could literally fulfill all of the criteria for the perfect wife and he would still hate you because I picked you, not him.”

“Parents are so weird like that,” she said.

“They are,” he agreed. “It’s like, they raised us, but they don’t know who we are or what makes us happy.”

“So what makes you happy, o Prince?” she asked, teasingly.

He had to stop and think about that—it’d never occurred to him to ask himself that question before. “You know, I don’t know,” he said, stunned. “I like my thesis and I like doing the research and I like living in England, but there’s no burning need to do that, no ‘If I can’t do that then I’ll die’ sensation. Is that what happiness is? Do you know what makes you happy?” he asked.

“I always figured that I’d know it when I find it,” she said, squeezing his hand. “And I’m pretty sure I’m right.”

He turned to face her, fighting down an urge to kiss her out of gratitude-someone who understood him, who knew what it was like to have to face these kinds of pressures.
That wouldn’t be proper—it’s just a first date
—

She leaned up and kissed him.

Her kiss was soft, sensual, leaving a lingering warmth when she stopped. He didn’t want it to stop—he went after her with his mouth, wanting to taste more of that delicate softness, to feel her warmth against the cool of the night breeze. Her lips tasted of honey and wine, sweet, intoxicating—the skin on her face was soft and dewy, like velvet, and her breath was a sweet warmth against his lips.

“No,” he said, hoarsely. “It’s not proper.”

“Screw proper,” she murmured. “Do you want this or not?”

Her arms wrapped around his chest and she pressed herself against him. Their bodies pressed against each other, hot with desire. “I want you,” he said, hoarsely. “I just don’t think—”

“Then stop,” she whispered. “Stop thinking. We have so little time together. If we start thinking about what we’re doing we’ll never get around to doing it.”

“I don’t know if I even like you—”

“What do you
feel
?” she asked.

That was when he knew for sure: he felt her passion rise through him, and it felt like he unleashed a flood of need: a need to be free, a need to love her and taste her and kiss her and touch her and know her the way he’d never thought a woman could be known. The desire did not feel like sacrilege—it felt like getting to understand the mind and word of the divine, as if just knowing that he felt this desire brought him one step closer to understanding God.

Her body was soft against his, her skin creamy and smooth under his hands. He felt tendrils of her hair coiling against his cheek—she’d taken off her headscarf, and her hair was floating freely in the sea breeze, tantalizing and seductive. The waves kissed their feet, washing the sand out from under their feet, anchoring them in the desert, under the stars, while his mind floated, reveling in the abandon with which they were touching each other, now—how free, how incredible.

It was a gift. Seeing the smooth skin of her shoulders as she slipped through the jeweled collar of her dress was like unwrapping something that was made of pure goodness and light. In the light of the moon her body was exquisite, not just because she was willing, but because she was beauty—and he understood now, as he watched her delicate fingers tug at the buttons on his shirt, that beauty was not just about the proportion of her breasts to her waist, but about giving him the gift of her body, allowing him to indulge his senses in the smell of her. There was, underneath the scent of her perfume, a sweet clean smell—a delicious smell, one that stoked a fiery warmth in him that he’d never felt before.

This is what it is like to love someone
.

The sand was still warm as they lay down on it, their hands exploring each other’s bodies, pressing on the skin, feeling the slight pulse that thumped underneath, feeling the rhythm trip and skip with excitement as they gulped for air and each other. Her legs were as smooth as silk, and the erotic promises they whispered as they coiled around his sent shivers of excitement through his body. Her eyes, deep pools of inky darkness in the moonlight, drew him in—he felt as if he was falling, and his body was acting of its own accord when he took her, and how exquisitely soft and warm she was.

He was falling, he could feel it now. He was falling and she was the promise of safety. In that secret smile of hers, he was lost—adrift in a sensation of wonder and marvel that a woman like her could make him feel this good.

They moved together, their bodies slowly grinding against the sand in time with the waves lapping the beach. He could feel her writhing under his body, wave-like, in time with the pulses of pleasure surging through him. They were one, their bodies in perfect synchrony, each one knowing what the other was doing, and as he looked into her eyes he felt as if he were looking into a mirror of himself—as if she were the reflection of his passions, brought to life.

The sensation that he was falling intensified. He was faintly aware that they were moving faster, now—but mostly he was aware that her breathing had changed, the subtle pulses he could feel through her body had quickened, and her fingers were digging into the flesh on his back and sides. He felt a desperation, a need—the pressure that he hadn’t been aware of was suddenly overwhelming, and he needed to let it go. He had to let it out—he needed a release more than he needed air. She felt it, too. He could see it in her eyes, feel it in the urgency that she was twisting against him with.

He felt her body close against him, suddenly, and in response he went in deeper. He wasn’t finished yet—didn’t she know that? Didn’t she know how much he needed her? Didn’t she know—

—how sweet the release was? How perfectly the heat of their bodies countered the coolness of the air? Did she know, as the release came, how beautiful the whole thing was? How he felt at one with the universe in that moment? That he could feel each and every last grain of sand on the beach—that for a moment he was every last grain of sand, he was every last star, casting their twinkling glows down upon them, celebrating their union? This was perfection—

This was love.

***

“Come see me tomorrow,” she said, when he took her back to her apartment.

“You can come with me,” he said. “You won’t need to go through immigration, you know?”

She smiled sadly and shook her head. “I don’t want to go back to the UK,” she said. “There’s too many bad memories there.”