ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance (95 page)

She shrugged, turning back to him with that same, subtle, crafty smile that had held him entranced the entire time they’d stood at the bar. “A little,” she confessed with a slight, curious nod.

“Why?” he asked, ever curious – on and off the job.

She shrugged, bare shoulders lush and luminous beneath a passing streetlight. She wore a shimmering black cocktail dress, tight along her magnificent torso and looser atop her long, gangly legs. Black heels gave her an extra inch or two, making them nearly the same height as they walked toward her condo on Coconut Street.

“I dunno,” she said, voice low and husky and conspiratorial as she leaned closer while waiting to cross the nearest intersection. “They just don’t inspire privacy, you know?”

He nodded, understanding the implication all too well. Turning, he nodded at his full-time bodyguards and drew a long, slender finger across his throat, signaling their duties were done for the night. They nodded, knowing there would be a fat bonus in it for them in the morning, even as he knew they’d continue to linger in the background, just not visible enough for Carly to see.

His nighttime indulgences notwithstanding, Rahm was royalty, after all, and thus his father insisted on constant monitoring at all times. Of course, as a thirty-year old man in the prime of his sexual life, there was “times” in Rahm’s life better left unmonitored.

This, hopefully, being one of them.

“Better?” he asked, offering his arm as they crossed the empty street, the blinking “Walk” sign redundant at this hour of the night. Or, should he say, early morning.

“Much,” she said, clinging to his arm tightly as they crossed the deserted street. Peering at the city now, neon and sultry, both quite and subdued but also with a vibrant, beating heart pounding just beneath the surface, Rahm could hardly believe he’d been eager to leave South Beach once the PrimeTime deal had gone south.

Now, charged with the most pleasant task of seducing his fiercest business rival, Rahm admired South Beach with a new sense of appreciation. He wondered how long it might take to bed a woman like Carly Stanton, and thought for once he wouldn’t mind one of his conquests making him wait.

After all, Rahm would much rather stick around, seduce and “monitor” Carly than chase another boring tech deal in some other city, which was so often his pattern.

“Penny for your thoughts,” she teased, pausing at another intersection as they wove farther away from Ocean Drive and deeper into the heart of downtown South Beach.

He smiled, drinking in the scent of her as they stood in the steamy darkness. “For once I’m not thinking, Carly,” he lied. Well, almost. “I’m doing.”

She chuckled, merrily, using the light post to launch herself into another deserted intersection as her funky, fashionable condo rose from the lackluster skyline in the near distance. “Is that supposed to be some kind of compliment?” she teased, dancing just out of reach as Rahm raced to catch up.

He didn’t race too fast, though, preferring to walk just behind her, the clatter of her heels on the cobblestone pavement, the shimmer of her legs, bare beneath the spray of her funky black dress, the promise of soft, pink panties dancing just out of reach and, beneath those, the luxuriant ginger bush Rahm was so desperate to tempt and tease beneath his trembling fingers and probing tongue.

She paused near a condo sign,
her
condo sign, turning coy and provocative as she ran her long, pale fingers along the security gate beside it. “Well,” she purred, their eyes meeting in the sultry dark beneath the glow of her building’s sign, which read The Atrium. “I appreciate the walk home.”

He felt the sudden sting of rejection throbbing in his gut, an unusual and certainly uncommon sensation. “I enjoyed it,” he said, inching closer to take her hand. “But I’d enjoy making sure you were safe inside your apartment even more.”

“That’s okay,” she said, and despite the firmness in her stance even Rahm could note the uncertainty, even reluctance, in Carly’s voice. “It’s a pretty secure building and, Rahm, from the hungry look in your eye, I think I’d feel a whole lot safer on the other side of this gate.”

He laughed, openly and honestly, a rare sound in its own right. “Am I so obvious?” he asked even as she opened and, before he could advance, closed the small gate between them.

“Trust me,” she said, inching closer to reach a soft, pale hand between the bars. “I’m a little hungry myself. I suppose this gate is here to protect us both.”

He took her hand, feeling the desire warm and beating just beneath the skin. “From what?” he asked, almost breathlessly, as he struggled between the dual sensations of frustration and desperation.

“From each other, I suppose,” she said, squeezing his hand and releasing it all in the same, quick motion. With that she turned, high heels clicking on the concrete as she approached a brightly lit lobby where a liveried doorman opened the door for her and greeted her warmly.

“Hold up, hold up, hold UP!”

Avery Hightower waved her cinnamon dusted frappucino cup for emphasis. “You ditched us for some drop dead sexy stud, stiffed us with the check for three mojitos and didn’t even get so much as a kiss goodnight.”

Carly chuckled good-naturedly, reaching in her wallet for a crisp fifty dollar bill. “Will this cover it?” she asked, watching Avery snatch it in her short, stubby fingers.

“It will
more
than cover the tab,” said the cheeky personal assistant, slipping the bill inside her purse before Carly could change her mind. “And I’m keeping it just to teach you a lesson.”

“Let me guess,” surmised Carly, toying with the handle of her oversized cappuccino mug. “The lesson goes a little something like ‘Hos before Bros,’ am I right?”

Avery wrinkled her nose, as if the quaint saying was already outdated. “More like what a wasted opportunity,” she sighed instead before inhaling another straw full of her frozen caffeine concoction.

Carly shrugged, clearer headed now than she’d been the night before when, somehow, she’d managed to summon the willpower not to ask Rahm up to her apartment to do all the wicked, dirty, nasty things she wanted him to. “I dunno,” she purred, still feeling frisky after her electric walk home with the Persian hunk with the predatory swagger and cocky leer. “The look on his face when I literally shut the gate on him was worth not getting to first base, Avery.”

Avery groaned as if Carly was speaking another language. “But what’s the point, Boss?” she asked, using her pet name for Carly who was, technically, her boss. “I mean, why deny yourself a night of pleasure when it’s literally walking you home?”

Carly shrugged, finding it hard to argue with her assistant, who at 23 was only eight years younger than her boss. “Haven’t you ever heard of playing hard to get?”

Avery blanched as if she’d bit into an actual coffee bean while sucking on her diminishing frappucino. “Those games don’t work anymore,” she pronounced with all of her lifelong experience.

“So what does?” Carly asked, genuinely curious.

This time it was Avery’s turn to shrug. “I dunno,” her PA replied less than helpfully. “I guess when I’m into a guy, he gets to be ‘into’ me, if you know what I mean!”

“Avery!” Carly teased, wagging a motherly finger even as she wished, somewhat jealously, she could live by the same credo. Sure, it had worked back in college, but now that she was a responsible adult, with a corner office and mortgage and life insurance and everything, she felt somewhat guilty every time she had a one night stand.

And besides, with Rahm, it was more complicated than that. Perhaps if all they’d done was meet at a bar, she might have indulged in a night long fluid swap back at her place. But they hadn’t. They’d met doing business, and thus Rahm was immediately and, she supposed, permanently a rival. She wouldn’t never think of “giving” up anything without a fight, not even a romp in her king size bed.

Even if she wanted to, Carly couldn’t “give in” to Rahm without a series of compromises and qualifications, like any good negotiation. A kiss here, a lacing of fingertips there, a purr or a moan, each would be doled out in good time.

That is, if he ever called her again!

“So what’s your game plan now?” Avery asked knowingly, as if reading her mind.

“Now?” Carly countered, another old negotiating tactic designed to buy herself enough time to come up with an answer.

“Yeah,” Avery said, falling for it hook, line and sinker. “I mean, the sexiest guy in the club walked you home, lingered at your gate, went home with the bluest of balls and… now what?” When Carly looked back at her, still unable to answer, Avery pursued the line of questioning with new vigor. “I mean, did you exchange digits? Cell phone numbers? Please tell me you at least got his business card.”

Carly shook her head, realizing she might have been a little too hasty in her negotiating tactics the night before. Avery was right: she’d screwed it up, all of it, every last inch of it. She’d played it so cool, there was nowhere left for Rahm to go but, well… away.

If he did call now, it would be a miracle and, what’s worse – for him, anyway – a losing battle. If Carly had neglected to get Rahm’s “digits,” as her young personal assistant had so hiply put it, then so had he. If she was in the dark about how to get in touch with him, than Rahm was as well, and to do so now would be to reveal that he had put some extra effort into making the first move.

Now all Carly had to do was sit and wonder if she was worth it…

Rahm sat in his office, three computer monitors flickering incessantly as his fingers flew across an equal number of keyboards. The first monitor was a streaming ticker of stock prices for the last two dozen tech companies Carly had acquired. The second pulled random profiles from each of those twenty-four companies and ran them through a filter of various keywords designed to elicit some kind of profile of which companies piqued Carly’s interest and why, all so Rahm could begin to predict which company might be in her line of fire next – and how he might get there and acquire said company first. The third was more personal, revealing Carly’s website and, after some snooping around, her work cell phone number.

His own smart phone sat on the desk between the second and third keyboards, the number already punched in and a profile pre-monitored, all so he could text her at a moment’s notice.

So why hadn’t he? Rahm wondered, grabbing a can of iced coffee from the office dorm fridge and standing as he opened it, the faint whiff of espresso and cream filling his nostrils with a savory scent indeed.

He took a long, eager sip before stretching and realizing how dark it had gotten in his lonely, isolated office. Located in the west wing and furthermost corner of the rented penthouse suite, it provided him with both privacy and isolation, both great for business but frustrating when it came to pleasure.

He felt restless, cooped up and pushed through the French door windows, late evening sprinkled with neon and salt spray from 24-stories below. His feet were bare, having long since kicked off his Italian loafers hours earlier. Padding silently onto the wraparound balcony, he smelled the faint scent of smoke and turned, just in time to find Ahmed, his head bodyguard, tamping out a clandestine cigarette on the bottom of his thick soled boot.

“Ahmed!” Rahm scolded playfully, accent thicker and more native around those from his homeland. “What have I told you about smoking on the job?”

Ahmed smirked, smile lighting up his granite hard face to match his chiseled and toned body. Trained in a dozen lethal fighting techniques and mercilessly loyal to the sheikh and his family, Ahmed’s soft, bashful smile belied the brutal force that lay beneath his fitted suit. “Always save one out for you,” Ahmed chuckled, accent almost as thick as Rahm’s father’s.

“That’s right,” Rahm said, reaching out for the pack of cheap cigarettes Ahmed offered. He grabbed one, slid it to his lips and waited for Ahmed to light it before inhaling the crisp, acrid smoke into his lungs. Tobacco was forbidden in the palace back home, but a rare and appreciated indulgence whenever abroad.

Like Rahm himself, Ahmed and the other dozen bodyguards assigned to him had assimilated quickly – and nearly totally – into western life, drinking, smoking and carousing nearly as much as their boss whenever time permitted.

They were no less effective in keeping him safe – not that he was in any danger to begin with – but Rahm feared for the day when they returned to the sheltered homeland and were forced to contend with his father’s strict and unyielding ways. He was no less afraid for himself, but at least Rahm could control their return date by continuing to be successful in his business. His poor bodyguards were ever at the sheikh’s mercy, and never more than a phone call from being whisked back home.

Rahm sucked on the borrowed cigarette, watching Ahmed do the same as they shared a rare and brief private moment overlooking the glittering jewel of South Beach down below.

“Burning the midnight oil, boss?” Ahmed asked with a knowing tone. Rahm realized that, more than perhaps anyone else, Ahmed knew his comings and goings. It was part of his job, of course, but it was more than that, Rahm realized now, the two men peering down at the city streets below.

“Always, Ahmed,” Rahm said by rote.

“Not ‘always,’ eh boss?” Ahmed teased back, nudging his boss’ shoulder and making Rahm smile sheepishly. “Many a night you’re working some angle at the hottest new nightclub, and not facts and figures in your home office.”

Rahm sighed in agreement, the nicotine tasting acrid on his tongue as he let the cigarette smolder between his fingers as they gripped the balcony railing restlessly. “Believe it or not, that’s what I’ve been doing all day.”

Ahmed rolled his eyes. “Come on, boss,” he groaned good-naturedly. “Internet porn is fine for nobodies like me, but for a future sheikh? Who could have any one of a thousand, of a
hundred
thousand, beautiful women in Miami? Why waste time on a computer when you can have the real thing?”

Rahm chuckled conspiratorially, realizing this was more than he and Ahmed had said to each other in weeks, even months. “Not that kind of work,” he explained. “Father wants me to research a new competitor and, well, she just happens to be drop-dead gorgeous.”