Trusting A Sheikh (Playgrounds of Power 1) (8 page)

Prince Tariq
knew
how to work a room, alright.

"Is that everyone?" he asked with an exhausted sigh as the last guest made their way out of the impressive high-rise bar.

"Yep," Chloe said, reassuringly, as tired as he was.

"Even Omar, Khalid? They've left, too?"

"Hours ago."

"Layabouts," Tariq jested. "Well, I guess we'd better head back. Where are you staying? Can I drop you off?"

"The Gloucester, same as you," Chloe replied lightly. "Well, not in quite as nice a room," she allowed, "but I'm on the same floor as you."

"Really?" Tariq asked, surprised. "I haven't seen you walking about."

"Well – how often do you leave that suite of yours?"

"You make a good point," Tariq allowed. "I really haven't left as often as I ought to."

"If I was staying there, I wouldn't either…"

Tariq offered his arm in a gentlemanly, very British fashion. "Well, I guess we're heading back together…"

"I guess we are," Chloe replied, not sure how to take the subtle subtext of what her client had just said – or even how she wanted to take it.

The Gloucester had a Rolls-Royce Phantom waiting downstairs all evening to take the Prince back to the hotel, and Chloe had warned the driver half an hour before, as the reception had begun to wind down, to be ready.

"Good evening, sir, ma'am," Alfred said, doffing his hat respectfully. "We'll be getting you back post haste," he said quaintly.

"Thanks, Alfred," Chloe replied with a sigh of relief as she kicked off her heels into the foot well of the passenger seat. "It's been a long day."

The journey back was short – the Gloucester was only a ten minute drive from the Hilton, but Chloe hadn't fancied braving either the brisk November weather, or walking back in the heels that had been assaulting her feet for hours.

Again the gentleman, Tariq offered his arm to help Chloe climb gracefully out of the car, and once again offered it to her to hold on to as they walked back into the hotel. This time, she declined – much as she wanted to cling onto him, the last thing she wanted was for rumors about any kind of unsavory affair between the pair of them to start. Hotels could be awful for things like that, and Chloe had worked in them for far too long to allow any hint of a rumor to start.

Nevertheless, even though Chloe had barely had a couple of drinks all night, after they'd climbed into the elevator, she somehow found herself leaning into his shoulder on the ride up. Tactfully, he didn't comment on it, and Chloe found herself enjoying the warmth transmitted through her arm, the feel of the hard muscle underneath his well-tailored suit, and the spicy scent of whatever aftershave he used.

Ping!

Chloe swiped the card which allowed the elevator to call at the private floors at the top of the Gloucester Hotel, and as she relaxed into her client's powerful arm, forgetting all the training she'd had which advised her to do precisely the opposite of what she was doing, the machinery whisked the pair of them up two dozen floors.

"Long night, eh?" Tariq sighed as they stepped out, doing nothing to dissuade Chloe from holding on to his outstretched arm.

"No kidding. There's not much going on tomorrow, is there?" Chloe said, knowing full well that there wasn't. "I could do with a lie in."

"Not at all," Tariq said as they slowed down in front of the door to the Presidential Suite. "Me too."

Making very little effort to disentangle herself, Chloe began. "Well, I guess I had better go to bed."

The handsome Prince to her right looked at her strangely, but only briefly, and Chloe began to second-guess his intentions. Beside them, she could hear the doors to the suite whooshing open as the high-tech locking mechanism recognized Tariq's presence.

"Hey, tell you what. Fancy a nightcap?" Tariq asked, almost bashfully. "I promised you a drink earlier on, after all."

"I'm not sure…" Chloe said, aware where this was probably leading, and desperately wanting to dive in headfirst, but also knowing the consequences of doing so.

She was easily swayed. "Go on, I owe you," Tariq wheedled.

"Go on then," Chloe said with a smile. "But only one! I've got work to do tomorrow."

Tariq wheeled her around happily by her arm, and they walked into the luxurious Presidential Suite, straight to the cocktail bar. He pulled his tie loose and discarded his jacket on a sofa so that he looked like – an extremely attractive – salesman at the end of a long day. Well, a salesman in a tailored suit, at least.

"What can I get you? Looks like we've got everything."

"I know." Chloe grinned. "I checked."

"Of course you did. How could I forget…" Tariq smiled back. "So, what'll it be?"

"This time of night? Only one thing for it – Barman, get me a bourbon."

Tariq whistled. "Big drink for a little lady."

Chloe raised one exquisitely manicured dark eyebrow in mock outrage. "Policing what I drink, are you?"

"I wouldn't dare. I think I'll join you with that. Woodford Reserve?"

"My favorite," Chloe said. "You know why it's in here?"

"Why?" Tariq asked, intrigued.

"So I can take it for myself once you leave," Chloe admitted happily. "Got to give the next client a bar filled with full bottles, you know."

"How sly…" Tariq grinned. "What if we finish it?"

"We?" Chloe asked, arching an eyebrow again. "I told you – I'm just having one."

"Okay," Tariq said, raising an arm in self-defense while clinking ice cubes into a pair of whiskey tumblers with his other. "Oh, sorry – how do you drink it? Ice or no?"

"Just a cube, please."

"Perfect, same as me."

Tariq flopped onto the comfortable leather sofa next to Chloe with two drinks in hand and offered one of them to her.

"Thanks."

Chloe once again kicked off her heels, curling her long legs in underneath herself. She sipped appreciatively at the fiery drink, enjoying the warm, comforting burn of the amber liquid as it made its way down her throat.

"Good, eh?" Tariq asked, breaking a brief but comfortable silence.

"I told you," Chloe replied, "it's my favorite."

"I was surprised, to be honest."

"I know you are – you didn't hide it very well," Chloe said pointedly.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. My mother's Norwegian, and you should taste some of the filthy drinks they have out there. I guess it gets so cold that they'll drink anything to stay warm…"

"Sounds like a place to avoid then…" Tariq joked.

"It's lovely, actually. If you go in spring – well, what they call spring anyway, for us it's summer by the time the snows melt – then it's absolutely gorgeous up in the mountains. Did you ever watched the Sound of Music?"

"No." Tariq chuckled. "I'm not sure that's exactly my type of film…"

"No? I think you'd be surprised. Anyway, Norway's just like those Austrian mountains – beautiful fields of rolling wildflowers and grass, snow-topped mountains in the distance, that kind of thing. I try to get out there as often as I can."

"I suppose," Tariq mused. "But then, I come from a country where the average temperature is well over one hundred degrees. I'm not sure Norway's for me…"

As he was speaking, Chloe stretched, and somehow the tips of her toes found their way to his lap, sending a frisson of excitement through her entire body as she did so.

"Maybe not," Chloe echoed, now continuing the conversation only half-heartedly, much more focused on the warmth pulsating through the connection of their two bodies. "But still, I think you'd like it."

"Perhaps you'll have to take me," Tariq murmured, allowing his hand to fall to a rest on Chloe's ankle. She took a big gulp of the whiskey, allowing it to burn away her second thoughts about what was about to happen.

She fixed him with a stare. "Maybe I will. Maybe we can take that big plane of yours."

"Anything you want…" Tariq gasped as Chloe's toes danced around his crotch. "You can have."

"Anything?" Chloe asked, a wicked look in her eyes, her body alive with sexual tension.

"Anything," Tariq affirmed.

That was it, the moment Chloe decided to jump the irresistible man sitting next to her. She sprang up like a lithe gazelle, coming to rest sitting on Tariq's lap, one leg on either side, and her pencil skirt awkwardly scrunched up.

"You haven't finished your drink," she said huskily, noting the still half full tumbler of whiskey in his hand.

His eyes burning with a kind of desire that Chloe had never seen before, Tariq didn't break eye contact as he finished the drink, letting the tumbler fall somewhere out of sight.

He glanced downwards. "That doesn't look comfortable…" he said, looking at her skirt.

"No? Perhaps you'd better do something about it," Chloe suggested, biting her lip.

Uncertainly, as though he didn't want to break the tension of the moment, Tariq moved his powerful hands to her hips and grasped them firmly. But then, he stopped, and Chloe worried that there was something wrong. She studied his expression, trying to figure out what was preventing him from making his move. He looked reticent, but not concerned – just as though he had entered some kind of trance.

Chloe decided to make the move for him and leaned forward, allowing Tariq to support her weight with his powerful arms, until their lips met in a passionate, electric kiss. It was as though the contact broke Tariq from whatever trancelike state he'd fallen into, and his response was firm, passionate and immediate. One of his warm, powerful hands snaked its way up Chloe's side, the other made its own way to the small of her back, and the maelstrom of sensations felt absolutely incredible.

"Perhaps I should," Tariq growled, leaving Chloe under absolutely no illusions as to who was in control. He was now, and she loved it.

The hand on Chloe's back drifted downwards, the hand on her torso drifted to her right breast and cupped it, sending an electric shock of excitement through her body and meeting the heat that was growing between her legs as she slowly, delicately ground her most pleasurable spot against Tariq's hard, muscled legs – hoping he wouldn't notice, but desperate for the pleasure, for him to take her.

Chloe whimpered as Tariq simultaneously nibbled at her neck and pawed at her breast, not allowing her a moment to collect her thoughts, or a second during which some new, different part of her skin wasn't being touched, forcing her into a delirious nirvana of expectation.

"Please…" she begged into his shoulder, no longer making any secret of the fact that she was now grinding her hips into the growing heat of Tariq's hardness, which she was now beginning to feel rising between her thighs.

"Please what?" Tariq asked, not stopping his hands from roaming across Chloe's entire body.

"Don't make me say it," Chloe begged.

"Then how do I know what you want?" Tariq asked wickedly, with a sly smile on his face.

"You know…"

"Say it!"

Whether it was the whiskey talking, now that it had burned its way down Chloe's throat and was mixing into her bloodstream, spurring her on to do unspeakable things, or the fact that the most attractive, compelling, intelligent man she'd ever laid eyes upon was pulling at her clothes and pawing at her body – leaving her under no illusions that he wanted to do anything other than bend over and take her right then and there, Chloe said it.

"Fuck me," she whimpered. She didn't want him to make love to her, at least not yet, at least not tonight, she just wanted him to take her however he wanted. The heat between her legs was unbearable, and she needed some release.

"That's all you had to say," Tariq whispered into her ear, biting it gently and scratching his evening stubble down the side of her face gently, sending tremors of excitement running through her body.

His hand, which had been resting the whole time at the tab of the zip at the top of Chloe's pencil skirt, sprang into action, remorselessly pulling the zipper down and freeing Chloe's legs from the embrace of the long piece of cloth. He took a deep breath of appreciation.

"Very nice," he said, seemingly awed by the sight of her long, tanned legs. "Very nice indeed." Chloe's jacket had long since been discarded, so she was left only in a long, white shirt and a plain set of underwear – she hadn't expected to find herself in this situation when she'd got herself dressed that morning.

At first gently, then firmly, then roughly, Tariq's hands began to explore the skin now free on her legs, and grope the soft material of her panties, squeezing her ass firmly between the palm and thumb of his huge hands.

"I said, fuck me," Chloe said, incapable of waiting even another second to feel Tariq inside her. She began to grapple with his belt, undoing it in a flash, and without stopping, her hands dived to the zipper of his suit trousers. She allowed her fingers to delicately dance across the hardness she could feel underneath the material, feeling a satisfying jerk as his member responded to her light, delicate touch.

"You're the boss," Tariq growled, lifting her up from his body with one powerful hand and hooking the fingers of his other through the waistband of her panties, tearing them off and throwing them onto the floor so that Chloe could feel the cool air-conditioned air of the hotel suite licking at the hot slit between her legs. He let her drop down, and she landed on his hardness, but he didn't stop, his hands now moving to the buttons of her shirt, and within seconds that, too, was lying on the floor, leaving her in just a bra.

Tariq stood up, taking her with him, and he threw her down onto the sofa. He stood over her, his broad shoulders pumped with blood from the exertion, doing their best to push their way out of his shirt. He tugged his tie over his head with one hand, undid the buttons of his shirt with the other, and let Chloe get to work freeing his pants.

Almost shy, even though she was mostly naked, Chloe looked up at the handsome Prince and asked, "Can I?"

Tariq nodded back, and demurely, Chloe traced her hands up the back of Tariq's naked thighs, running her hands through the soft, curly hair that covered his strong, powerful legs. As she did so, she could see his manhood growing under the soft cotton of his boxer shorts. She looked up and saw the fire in his eyes, and couldn't hold herself back any longer.