14
That first orgasm carried everything with it: waves of shock, embarrassment, even shame. As she came from his touch she had a vision of thirty people standing outside the restaurant, all of them with their ears to the door, all of them whispering and making eyes at one another, calling her a whore one moment and a slut the next. She thought of Carmen holding her son, who was just a few months old, outside the room while his dirty mommy got fucked by a Sheikh. It would be all over the Internet, wouldn’t it? Was that what Damascus was going to read about when he was old enough to point-and-click on a computer? How his mother slutted herself out on a Middle-Eastern vacation while her son—
Stop it, she thought as she felt the Sheikh kiss her again. Amir is right. My marriage is over and he’s single. There’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing. It’s a bit embarrassing because everyone probably knows what we’re doing, but the truth is every woman out there wants to be me right now. As for the men out there . . . to hell with them. Who cares.
Lora leaned her head back and tried to laugh, but all she could do was gasp as she felt the Sheikh push her dress up over her breasts and snap her bra off, releasing her boobs and immediately sucking on her right nipple while pinching her left until both hardened to stiff red peaks.
“Oh, God,” she moaned as she spread her arms out wide and let him have her body the way he wanted. It felt liberating, to have that strange undercurrent of guilt and embarrassment running through her as the ecstasy of what was happening carried her along like a raging river.
She looked down at herself, gasping when she saw the Sheikh’s face between her breasts. She’d been nursing Damascus and she was heavy with milk, and the sight of Amir sucking and licking her felt so filthy it aroused her even more. She watched as the Sheikh made his way down her body, kissing her bare stomach as he kneaded her breasts and pinched her nipples. Soon he was licking her belly-button, making his way even lower . . . lower, lower, lower until his face was buried in her brown triangle of soft curls.
Again embarrassment washed across her as she wished she’d trimmed herself down there, but Lora forced the thought away and let him go there. Not that she could have stopped him anyway, she realized when she felt his strong hands spread her thighs and hold her down as he kissed her along her slit.
“Did you think about this three years ago?” he asked her as he began to lick her lengthwise along her wet crease, making her moan so loud she barely heard the question.
“What?” she muttered. “No. Of course not.”
“How about this?” he whispered as he teased her clit with the tip of his tongue, and she could tell he was grinning even though she couldn’t see his face through the tears of ecstasy clouding her vision.
“You’re sick,” she moaned. “No. Absolutely not. None of it.”
“Ah, my modest lady librarian,” he said, licking her again and then stopping. “Well, I had better stop then. I would not want to sicken you by taking liberties before we have gone on the standard three dates.”
Lora laughed, feeling the need to buck her hips up into his face. But she held still and shrugged. “Well,” she said. “If the first date was the Palace tour and the second date was when I visited your chambers, then technically this is the third date. So it’s perfectly ladylike and acceptable behavior. Please go on. I believe you were . . . oh, yes, that. Do that.”
It’s my divorce party, she thought as she felt her tongue curl up over her upper lip even as the Sheikh slid his tongue into her slit, holding it there for a moment before twirling it around inside her like he knew exactly which areas to touch. She was going to come again, she knew, and she pushed her hips upwards, smiling as she felt Amir’s firm grasp on her inner thighs.
It’s my divorce party, she thought again as that orgasm approached, and suddenly it was there, earlier than she expected, and she was climaxing hard, coming like an animal in heat, and before she realized what was happening she felt tears rolling down her cheeks, and with each tear she could feel something from the past three years slip away, drain away, fade away . . . the guilt of how this had all started three years ago, the knowledge that she’d been engaged to another man and had secretly enjoyed the way the Sheikh had kissed her, the anger she still felt with Mark for cheating on her while she was pregnant, the strange annoyance she felt at Carmen for being right about Mark all along, another form of guilt for bringing Damascus into this world somehow knowing that his father would not be part of their lives . . . all of it came out of Lora as she came, and before she was done she was sobbing like a child, her chest heaving as she took massive gulps of fresh air.
“Are you all right, Lora?” came Amir’s voice through her hysterics. “Lora, what is the matter?”
“Nothing!” she shrieked, almost smiling as the tears rolled down her round cheeks. “It’s my divorce party! It’s my divorce party, and I’ll cry if I want to.”
The Sheikh roared with laughter as he rose and then lay on top of her, his heavy, hard body feeling wonderful as it smothered and almost crushed her. He felt like a blanket, secure and warm on top of her, like he belonged there.
“The quality of your jokes is in line with your taste in music,” he growled in her ear, still chuckling as she moved beneath him. But then he stopped laughing. “What is wrong? Did I hurt you? Am I too heavy for you?”
Lora shook her head and closed her eyes. Saying the word “party” had reminded her where she was. “All those people,” she whispered opening her eyes for a moment and then closing them again as she felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “They’re all outside this room.”
“Who gives a damn? Do you even know most of those people? What difference does it make?”
“It makes a difference,” Lora said. “It makes a difference that they know what . . . what’s happening in here.”
“So they know. All right. So bloody what? Are you afraid they will judge you?”
Lora paused. “I suppose so. Yes.”
The Sheikh smiled, caressing her hair and looking into her eyes. “Which simply means that it is you who is judging yourself, does it not?” Amir shook his head. “You married a man you knew was wrong for you three years ago, and you did it because you believed you were expected to do it, because you had already said yes and so you couldn’t change your mind. Perhaps the kiss we shared—”
“The kiss we shared?” Lora said, frowning as she wondered where the venom was coming from suddenly. “You kissed me without asking, without warning, without . . . without any decency!”
Amir’s face clouded over as his grip on her hair tightened, and he studied her face as she breathed beneath his heavy body. “Without any decency?” He shook his head slowly, his frown deepening, his green eyes shining dark like the waters of a deep ocean. “You are still living with the shackles of some imagined morality, some strange set of social norms that exist nowhere but in your head. Get your head out of your books, my librarian. This is the real world, and if you don’t start living your life for yourself, for what you want, for what makes you feel good . . .”
“I can’t just live life for myself,” she snapped up at him, his body starting to feel awfully heavy now. “I have a son. A son who means everything to me. A son who has no one but me!”
The Sheikh blinked, his jaw tightening. He drew a long, deep breath, as if he was thinking carefully about his next words. “No,” he said softly. “Your son will have me too someday. Perhaps sooner than you think. Perhaps sooner than we both think.”
“What?” Lora said, the breath rushing out of her as she stared up into the Sheikh’s eyes. In his eyes she thought she saw his meaning, but it couldn’t possibly be the truth. How could he say something like that to a woman he barely knew? And how could the words of a man she barely knew mean so much, make her feel warm and secure inside while still sending chills and sparks flowing through her like she was alive with electricity.
And then as he leaned in and kissed her again she realized that she was wrong. They’d known each other for three years already, hadn’t they? Just because they’d spent most of those three years in different countries without any contact didn’t mean anything because they were somehow alive and together in one another’s minds, their subconscious minds, the connection of that first kiss rippling beneath the surface for those three years, finally drawing them back together.
Sheikh’s Privilege, came the thought out of the back of her mind as Amir kissed her again, his hands moving along the curves of her sides, along her outer thighs, spreading her slowly as he grinded his hips against her naked crotch. So is this Amir holding true to the expectations of his own strange traditions, which is exactly what he accused me of doing foolishly three years ago when I married Mark? Or is it just a wealthy, powerful Sheikh exercising his privilege to do whatever the hell he wants with whomever he wants without giving a damn about the consequences?
Again Lora thought of the people she imagined were standing outside the room, clawing at the walls and doorway, listening through cracks and staring through peepholes. Then the image made her laugh out loud as a sense of recklessness whipped through her even as she felt her arousal soar once more as the Sheikh unbuckled and unzipped, his knuckles grazing her clit as he did it.
What’s the worst that can happen, she asked herself as that feeling of wanton recklessness rose up so strong it was like a drug, powerful and raw, overwhelming and intoxicating. We have sex and I never see him again. Is that so bad? Wouldn’t it almost be a relief? And he’s right: Who cares what some random Europeans think about me? Besides, they’re Europeans, not Americans—which means they’re a bit more chilled about sex, yeah? They don’t have the same hypercritical morality of modern American society, where men and women alike cluck and shake their heads in public and then retire to their pornography or their booty-calls in private while telling their kids that sex is the root of all evil.
Yes, what’s the worst that can happen, she thought again as she felt his cock spring out so strong it slapped against her mound, making her gasp as she looked down between them. God, he was huge, she thought as she stared at his massive erection, brown and long, thick and heavy, the head of his cock glistening with his clean natural lubricant, poised and ready for entry.
“May I have the privilege,” he whispered against her cheek, his voice deep but unsteady with arousal, trembling with need, burning with desire.
“Yes,” she muttered, the word coming out so quick it sent a chill through her. What was she saying yes to, she wondered as she thought about all she’d read about Sheikh’s Privilege, about how the Sheikh took responsibility for every marriage in his kingdom, about how Sheikh’s Privilege was really the Sheikh’s Guarantee that he would back up any marriage he allowed to proceed.
“Yes,” she whispered again as she felt him enter her, his girth parting her slit so wide she almost forgot she’d given birth just three months earlier. “Yes, you may.”