30
“You told her that?” the Sheikh said quietly, his green eyes narrowed as he clenched his fists and stared at Lora. Mostly she’d seen rage in his eyes, pure anger at what Marissa had done, what the woman had come so close to doing. But now she saw a hint of something else: admiration, it felt like. “You told her she would make a great queen? Ya Allah, I do not know how you talked your way through it so she would believe you, but I thank the angels you found the strength and conviction to do it.” He paused, looking her up and down, glancing at Damascus perched on a high-chair beside them at the breakfast table in the private courtyard just outside the Eastern Wing of Johaar’s Royal Palace, with the sun rising in front of them as if to remind them a new day was here. A new era. Old lives transformed. New life on the way. “Though I am not surprised. Clearly it is you who is going to be a great queen, Lora. A Sheikha for the ages.” He paused again, clenching those heavy fists as he stared at the silver cup full of thick Arabian coffee. “But Marissa . . . ya Allah, I cannot let this pass. She will pay for taking you and my son.”
Lora frowned as she touched her belly, which was beginning to show in a way it hadn’t when she was pregnant with Damascus. They hadn’t found out whether it was going to be a boy or a girl yet, and at first she assumed Amir was hoping for a boy—which was why he said what he said about Marissa taking his “son.” But then she realized he was talking about Damascus, and her heart leaped when she saw the genuine emotion in the Sheikh’s eyes. Yes, the emotion was mostly anger right now, but it was still genuine. A real, true protective instinct, primal and raw. For his woman and child. But the emotion was elevated and refined, broadened to include his adopted son. There was no doubt that Damascus was now the Sheikh’s true son, that they were truly a new family.
But Lora blinked away her joy and shook her head, focusing on the topic at hand. “No,” she said. “I gave her my word, Amir. She walks away, and we walk away. There will be no ‘making her pay’—whatever the hell that means.”
“We shall see,” muttered the Sheikh, staring at his coffee and shaking his head.
“Sorry. We are going to keep my promise to her, Amir. There is no argument. Besides, although I was negotiating for my children’s lives and our future together, I can’t help but think the reason I was so convincing is because I actually had a point.”
Amir snorted, finally picking up the silver cup of coffee and taking a sip. “That Marissa will make a great queen? Of some alien race of genocidal maniacs, perhaps.”
Lora laughed and shook her head, sipping the herbal tea she’d been drinking ever since she got pregnant with Amir’s child. “Perhaps. Yes, she’s a bit lacking in basic human empathy, but she makes up for it with the way she can dispassionately think through a situation and make the optimal decision. If she was truly a psychotic loose cannon, she might have had both Damascus and myself killed, you know. Just for spite or anger or jealousy or whatever. But there was none of that, and when I presented her with a scenario that made more sense than the one she’d thought of, she went with it. She was able to put aside her ego and choose the better solution, no matter who presented it. That’s one of the qualities that marks a great leader, you know. So who knows . . . Queen Marissa might someday be on the cover of Time, Newsweek, and Vogue—all in the same month!”
Amir finally cracked a smile. “She would like that. Her dream come true—so long as they photograph her good side.”
Lora laughed, reaching across the smooth black marble tabletop and touching the Sheikh’s hand. They were to be married in a week, her children were safe, and the sun was rising in the East like it had for a million years. Things couldn’t be better. But something still felt unsettled for Lora. Something Marissa had said which had triggered some of those old doubts—doubts about both herself and Amir. Not about their love for each other, but about something perhaps bigger than just that.
“Amir,” she said as a soft, warm breeze flowed over the strange little Arabian family sitting alone at a black marble table, fountains of blue sandstone surrounding them, golden sand dunes rising high against the horizon beyond the domes and minarets of an Eastern city that was just waking up. “Why did you ever agree to marry Marissa?”
“Which time?” he said, rolling his eyes and looking away, clearly trying to avoid the question. “Please, Lora. You cannot be jealous of her. You looked into her eyes, did you not. You know she never was, and never will be, a threat to you.”
“That’s not my question,” Lora said, shaking her head. “This isn’t about jealousy or asking you to tell me you love me. This is about what Marissa said about how a king and queen must sometimes make decisions that put their kingdoms ahead of their own feelings and private desires. In the end, that’s what she did when she let me and Damascus walk out of there unharmed—regardless of what I think about her capacity for normal human emotion.” She paused and took a breath. “And it’s that same sense of responsibility to your people and their future that made you agree to take her back, isn’t it?”
The Sheikh rubbed his stubble as he put his coffee down. He glanced towards the rising sun, squinting and then looking down and nodding. “Yes. So what?”
“So . . . we’re getting married in a week, Amir. In many ways we’ve known each for almost four years now. I feel the love between us—and God, I feel the passion. I’m pregnant with your child, and it’s clear you’ve found it in yourself to accept Damascus as your own. There’s no doubt in my mind that as man and woman we’re solid, a perfect match—and I know you feel that way too.” She swallowed hard, not sure if she could bring herself to ask what she knew she must: “But you aren’t just a regular guy, Amir. You’re a king, and I need to ask: Are you comfortable this is the right thing for your kingdom?”
The Sheikh’s eyes widened as he straightened in his chair. “Is that a serious question? After almost four years of denying ourselves each other, when you are pregnant with my child, when we are days away from our wedding, you ask me this question?”
“That’s exactly why I’m asking you this question, Amir!” Lora said as a flurry of annoying emotions threatened to rise up and set her aflame like the sun that was starting to get blazing hot as it continued its rise above the golden horizon. She glanced out over the city of Johaar, and that feeling she had from years ago, a strange feeling of . . . of . . . responsibility, duty, obligation came rushing back in. She frowned as she tried to gather her thoughts and articulate what she felt, and finally she turned back to the Sheikh and spoke softly. “I’m a commoner librarian pregnant with your illegitimate child, Amir. I know we have a connection that started with that first kiss—God, I know we have a connection that is so real, so true. But you’re a king, with a duty to your people and their future. If I’m going to be a distraction . . . if I’m going to get in the way of ruling your kingdom . . .”
“You are not going to be a distraction but an attraction,” Amir said with a smile. “And from seeing how you handled yourself with Marissa, the way you’re handling yourself now . . . Ya Allah, rather than getting in the way of my kingdom’s future, you will be the way. You will be the future! Now stop with the nonsense and let us finish our breakfast before the sun rises any farther and you slather on that damned sunscreen.”
Lora raised an eyebrow as she finished her tea. “You have a problem with me using sunscreen?”
“Yes,” said the Sheikh, raising an eyebrow himself as he drained his coffee and carelessly tossed the heavy silver cup back onto the marble tabletop. “I do not like how it tastes on your skin.”
Lora turned bright red, and not because of the sun. “Are you going to be having me for breakfast then, Your Highness?” she whispered, crossing her legs and blinking as she glanced down at the blue silk gown she was wearing. She could feel herself tighten in her black panties, and she glanced up at one of the attendants, a veiled woman who was slated to be Damascus’s nanny.
The attendant swiftly took Damascus back to the Palace without making eye contact, and by then Lora was blushing a deep crimson as she felt her wetness flow between her legs, a damp spot already forming at the base of her bottom where she sat.
“Not here,” she whispered. “Someone might see.”
“Good,” said the Sheikh, standing up and almost knocking the heavy table over with his obscenely hard peak. “Then they will know who their Queen and Sheikha is. Now get on the table.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” growled the Sheikh, and with a sweep of his strong arm he knocked everything off the table: plates, cups, glasses, knives, teapots . . . everything went clattering and crashing onto the cobblestones of the courtyard. “Get. On. The. Damned. Table. Now!”
Slowly she obeyed, clambering onto the heavy round table, gasping as she felt the cool black marble under her palms and bare feet. She sat on her bottom, gasping again when the Sheikh pushed her onto her back and pushed her gown up over her hips, pulling her panties down past her ankles and tossing them over his shoulder while staring in awe at the sight of her dark triangle, its brown curls tinged with the gold of the sun’s pure morning rays.
“My queen,” he muttered as he grabbed her ankles and spread her legs, sitting himself down and kissing the insides of her creamy white thighs until she shuddered and arched her back. “You taste sweet like honey. I cannot have enough. Come here, my queen.”
He pulled her along the smooth tabletop, and the cool black marble felt so erotic against her naked buttocks that she shamelessly spread her legs as far wide as she could, reaching out her arms and clutching the sides of the table as the Sheikh buried his face in her crotch. Amir began to lick her slit lengthwise until she could feel her wetness drip down along her crack and onto the table, and she pushed her mound up into his face and moaned without caring who would hear. She smiled as she did it, and as the Sheikh drove his tongue into her, Lora wondered if that last unsettled feeling was all about her and not the Sheikh. After all, she was three different people in one, wasn’t she: A wife, a mother, and a queen. She already knew she was a good mother and would always be a good mother. She knew she’d be a good wife to him. But a queen . . . perhaps she needed some reassurance that she had a chance at being a good queen, and in a strange way that encounter with Marissa had opened up that side of her. She’d taken care of that situation herself, hadn’t she? And she’d gained insight into what it took to be a great leader.
She moaned again as her head spun from the quickly rising ecstasy, and she blinked as she raised her head and watched the Sheikh immerse himself into pleasuring her. She ran her fingers through his thick hair, smiling with tears in her eyes as Amir raised his head and licked his lips, drawing back and whipping off his shirt to expose his ripped torso, brown muscles so large and contoured they cast shadows as the sunbeams bounced off his bronzed ridges. Soon he was naked, hard, erect like a minaret, the head of his cock shining like the dome of the Grand Palace itself. He climbed onto the table with her and got between her spread-out thighs, rolling his cockhead around her glistening entrance before pushing himself in all the way with a forceful thrust.
Lora arched her neck back as the Sheikh grasped her wrists and began to pump into her as the sun rose above them. And as they fucked on their breakfast table, with the blue sandstone fountains gently gurgling around them, that last thought came back to her as their bodies fell into a silent, heavy rhythm led by the Sheikh’s powerful hips and thrusting buttocks . . . that last thought about how perhaps she herself could be a great leader someday.
Is that part of the reason he was willing to take Marissa back, she wondered. Because he understood she could be a good queen? Is Amir truly worried that his father’s condition has been passed on to him, and that his wife might need to be supreme Sheikha and ruler someday? Perhaps. Which meant that perhaps the encounter with Marissa had given Amir more confidence in Lora’s ability to one day handle things on her own. Oh, God, how strange the way things work, the good that comes out of what seems like an awful situation!
She gasped as she felt the Sheikh’s power between her legs, the way his cock flexed deep inside her every time he thrust. God, the man always fucked her like it was the first and last time he was doing it, didn’t he? Was there always that fear at the back of his mind that someday he would be confined to a bed like his father? Was there a way she could ease that fear for him? Tell him that if no one else in his family had the condition, it was virtually certain that he was safe?
No, she realized as she felt him pump harder and grunt against her neck as he began his final ascent to what she knew would be a thundering climax, with his heat shooting deep into her cavern until she overflowed onto that black marble from the torrents of semen he’d pour into her. There’s nothing you can say to ease that unconscious fear. The only thing you can do is to live fully with him, bear his children, learn about his people, his kingdom, his traditions. Be his wife, his partner, his queen.
Yes, be his wife, his partner, his queen. But also . . . she thought as she felt his heavy balls slap against her wet skin and then tighten as he roared in pleasure, the first blast of his load hitting the back wall of her vagina with such force she almost choked . . .
Yes, be all that for him, but also, when he needs it, when you need it . . . take off your pristine white gown, flutter your elegant eyelashes, spread your royal legs, and be his whore.
Just his. His alone. Always and forever.
∞