Chapter Six
There was something strange and exciting about having the sheikh of Abu Dhabi as a lover, Anna thought two weeks later. It was both like and unlike what she had expected.
When she was a bit younger, Anna had read plenty of magazines, half-envious and half-confused by the lives of the famous people described within them. Rakim was a man who was featured regularly in magazines throughout the world, but in their time together, there was never any real glamor to it. He wore luxurious clothes, but they were clothes that were also comfortable and worn—ones he had had for years. The house staff prepared him whatever meals he wished, but he was just as likely to go and grab a quick meal on his own, or to share a meal with Anna.
Sometimes, he seemed like a normal man, if a wealthy one.
Other days…being in Rakim's life was like living in some kind of fairy tale. She still couldn't forget the first time he had taken her riding on the mountain trails.
“I'm afraid that I don't know how to ride,” she protested. “I've never been on a horse, let alone tried to steer one down a mountain.”
“It will be fine,” he said with confidence. “If you have never ridden before, I will certainly not force you to ride alone. You will simply ride with me.”
He had said it like it was law. She dressed in her warmest jeans and sweater, and she followed him apprehensively out into the stable. The horses all looked enormous to her, and though most of them looked very friendly, Rakim led her to fiery gray steed that was practically dancing in its stall.
“Ah, there we are, my darling,” Rakim crooned, stroking his hand along the horse's arching neck. “What a perfect beauty you are.”
“Is...this one your favorite?” Anna asked warily, looking up at the horse. Unlike the others, it was tall and sleek, its eyes as bright as stars.
“This is Marta, and he's one of the prizes of my stable, yes. He is the product of three generations of careful breeding, all starting with my father.”
She could see the beauty in the horse and the pride that Rakim took in it. It was a gorgeous animal, but its height and its size made her nervous.
“I am not sure that I can do this, Rakim,” she murmured. “I am not sure that that horse likes me all that much.”
“Do you trust me?”
The question startled her, and she looked up at him in confusion.
“What do you mean?”
“It is a simple question at the bottom of it, Anna. Do you trust me or not?”
There was a slight smile on his face, but there was something more serious behind it. She knew that whatever answer she gave, it would have to be the truth. The sheikh would accept nothing less. She thought for a moment, and she knew what her answer had to be.
“Yes, I do trust you,” she said softly, and a white grin split his face.
“Good. Then believe me when I say that you are going to be all right. I would never do anything that was going to cause you pain or injury. So today, you are going to learn a bit about riding. Come here, I want you to meet Marta.”
She took a deep breath, realizing that it was time to put her money where her mouth was. Marta looked at her as if he were deciding between stomping her or licking her, but when Rakim had her feed him a sugar cube, he decided on the later. She was startled by how soft and velvety the horse's nose was, and by how softly he could lip the sugar away from her.
“There,” said Rakim, nodding approvingly as she ran her hand along the animal's neck. “Now that you are friends, we can take you riding.”
She laughed, because surely there was more to it than that, but as it turned out, Rakim wasn't kidding at all. Instead of having one of the hovering stable hands saddle Marta for him, he did it himself, and when he was done, he boosted Anna up on the wide saddle. For a moment, she blinked owlishly on top of the horse, who whickered and paced in place. It felt as if there were a small earthquake going off only underneath her, and she tensed, but then Rakim was vaulting up behind her.
When she felt his broad chest against her back and his arms settling on either side of her, Anna felt herself relax slightly. He was here, and she did trust him. He was not going to let anything happen to her.
Of course, that feeling of safety only lasted as long as it took for them to clear the stable. The moment they were on the trail, he squeezed the horse's sides with his knees, and they were off.
"I thought you were going to start off at a walk!" she protested, and he laughed.
"Remember that the faster the horse goes, the more smooth the ride is. I thought that you might appreciate a quicker trip up the mountain."
"How very thoughtful of you!"
Despite her initial fear, however, Anna quickly learned to enjoy the trip. She hung on to the saddle-horn in front of her, but somehow, despite the speed and the rocky trail, she never felt too frightened. She knew that Rakim was watching out for her, making sure that she was never anything but steady.
It seemed like no time had passed at all before he wheeled Marta around, turning him off the trail and towards what looked like a small paddock.
"Here, let me help you down. You're going to like this."
Getting off the horse was harder than getting on, Anna discovered. The moment her feet touched the ground, she grunted, suddenly aware of a stinging soreness in her inner thighs.
"It is normal," Rakim assured her. "When you learn to ride properly, the soreness will be a thing of the past."
"I will be honest,” she said, "I don't think that I ever thought about riding as something that I would personally do before today."
"And now?"
"Well, now thanks to you and Marta, maybe I will consider it."
He laughed at her cautious answer.
"Well let me see if I can further convince you," he said with a slight smile. "Will you come with me?"
She started to follow him, but her legs felt like jelly. She was astonished at how tiring simply sitting on a horse could be.
"I'll be along in just a moment," she said, but then she squeaked with surprise as Rakim scooped her up in his arms.
"I'm the impatient sort," he said wickedly. "I like getting my own way."
"I know all about that," she retorted, thinking of their last night together, but she smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck.
He carried her to the edge of the paddock. From where she had stood it had looked like it sloped down the mountainside, but when she could look over the edge, she saw that it was a steep drop.
"Oh my gosh," she exclaimed, burying her face in Rakim's shoulder, "I didn't know we were up so high!"
He laughed a little, dropping a kiss on her forehead.
"Do not worry, darling," he said. "I have a hold on you here, just like I did when you were on Marta's back. Why don't you look out beyond the drop-off? This is what I brought you here for."
"I...I am not sure I can," she said, her heart still beating hard from the scare. "I'm not afraid of heights, but I am also not very fond of them."
He gave her another kiss, this one on her earlobe. It was warmer and more sensual than the one before, and it sent shivers through her. Somehow, her fear of the edge only made the pleasure more delicious and she clung to him even tighter.
"I think I gave you an order," he purred. "Or should I show you that I am the master here, too?"
"Unfair," she whimpered, but she knew that it was a lost cause. His method of showing her he was master was simply to lay her down and pleasure her until she gave in. Perhaps once or twice she had defied him on purpose to make him prove his status, but in general, it was a very convincing strategy.
"Well?"
"All right, I'll look," she said, taking a deep breath. Slowly, she turned her head to see.
What she saw made her jaw drop. The entire valley was spread out below her. She could see the palace, but beyond that, she could see the town. There were the fields, green and gold, and the deeper green of the forest, so dark it was nearly black. Above that all was the bright blue sky, perfectly cloudless and smooth, and all Anna could think was that she could drown in this beauty.
"Well, little one? Is it worth looking?"
"Yes," she said with a smile. "Absolutely. Thank you for helping me to look...master."
She said the phrased deliberately low and husky. Anna was still not always sure what the world-famous sheikh saw in her, but she was not above using it for her own ends from time to time.
She glanced up coyly to see that his blue eyes were darker now as he looked at her. His body was powerful, holding her tirelessly, but now she could tell that there was another strain to it as well, a thread of need that ran between them and that was now pulled taut.
"Sheikhs were once conquerors," he said softly, pulling her back from the edge. He set her down on the soft grass and came to rest at her side. There was a nip to the air that kept it from being balmy, but the slight chill simply made her more alert, hungrier in a way that she couldn't quite describe.
"Were they?" she asked softly, and he nodded.
"They would descend on lands with their armies at their back, and they would offer terms, surrender or die. Those who surrendered were taken into the empire, made free citizens...but perhaps not all would be."
Anna swallowed, stroking Rakim's hand gently. She had always heard that rich men had soft hands, but his were rough from his years of horsemanship.
"Who were the exceptions?"
"Sometimes, a sheikh would see a local girl, a beauty who captured his eye. He might have wives distantly, he might have been married to his sword as was occasionally said in distant times, but sometimes when he saw a girl, he had to have her."
"And if she was unavailable?"
His grin was bright and just short of savage.
"Then she would be made available for him," Rakim responded. "If he had to, he would sweep in during the night, throwing her household into disarray. He would catch her up on his horse, throwing her before him like some kind of precious treasure that needed to belong to him, only to him."
Anna shivered, pressing herself against him. She could imagine how frightened the girl would be, taken away from her quiet life, and how afraid she would be of what came next.
"Would he take her to some high place, far above the world she had known?" Anna suggested.
"He might, and after taking her down off his horse, perhaps he would massage her poor thighs, so sore and unused to the saddle. That would change in the days to come, because a sheikh's lover had to be as skilled as he was if she was to follow him across the world, but that first day, perhaps she would be pampered a little, spoiled a little."
Rakim sat with his back against the tree, and with a little urging, he settled Anna between his spread legs. She leaned her back against his chest, marveling at how comfortable she was, and then she made a soft sound of dismay as he started to work her jeans down her legs.
"Rakim!"
"Shhh, don't worry, my little beauty. Let me take care of you."
She hissed at the shock of cool air against her inner thighs, but when his fingertips started to trace light patterns over her sensitive skin, she couldn't deny that it felt good. Then he started to rub the sore spots in earnest and she groaned, leaning back against him.
There was a kind of magic in his fingers, she thought hazily. The buzzing soreness that had been there before was slowly and carefully worked away, and in its aftermath, she was left as limp and relaxed as a strand of seaweed.
When he grew a little too rough, she made a soft whimpering sound and he pulled back a little. When she needed more, she arched up into his hands. Anna lost track of time as she rested in his embrace, letting him massage her soft flesh.
At some point, she started to feel him grow hard, and in response, she squirmed slightly, pressing back against him even as she came up out of her haze a little. There was no urgency to the passion at all, nothing besides the sweetness that came with being so close to a man who knew her body so well. There was no stress or fear, and as she settled back against him, she opened herself to his touch even more.
At some point, she lost her jeans and underwear, and in another life, Anna would have been shocked at her wanton display. Now the sunlight was spilling across her utterly bare flesh, in front of the entire world, but all that mattered was the fact that Rakim had his hands on her, that Rakim was touching her and holding her.
He ghosted his fingers along her slit, gently at first and then with increasing pressure. He never pushed or forced; instead, he waited for her natural response to rise up. In a matter of minutes, she was pushing her hips up to his touch, and even the bare graze of his fingers was spreading her open.
“Oh my god,” she murmured, turning her head so that she could rest her cheek against his chest. “You...you can't know what you are doing to me.”
“No,” he agreed, and she was thrilled at the fact that his voice was breathless. He might have been the one in control, but she was far from alone in the pleasure that he was creating. She could hear a faint tremor in his voice, something that told her that sooner or later, he was going to lose all of that hard-won control.
“I have no idea what I am doing to you,” Rakim murmured. “All I know is that I like the reaction.”
She started to ask him what he meant by that, but then she realized. She hadn't been still while he was touching her. She had twisted her hands in his shirt, dug her heels into the ground, and rocked her hips against him. It had all contributed to arousing him even further, and she groaned at the picture she made.
“We're outside,” Anna said in feeble protest, but he only chuckled.
“Do you think I care even a little?” he asked. “I am the sheikh. My ancestors carved a country out of sand and rock. We are not ashamed of what we do, and our lovers, those we have chosen, do not fear anything because they walk beside us.”
Somehow, it made sense to Anna. In her world, there was nothing more powerful than Rakim. He was the beginning and the end, and his word was law. Slowly, her body simply went limp in his grasp. The world was empty except for the two of them and their passion.
“Do you surrender to me?” he asked, his voice warm in her ear. “Do you give yourself over to me, beautiful woman?”
“Yes,” she said, almost mouthing the word instead of saying it.
No matter how softly she said it, however, he heard her. He had been teasing her before, but now he was kissing her in earnest. His clever fingers stroked her clit directly, making her thrash and writhe, and his free hand slid underneath her sweater, cupping her small breast. She had long since given up the idea that they were not enough; every night, he showed her he wanted them and how they were more than enough for him.
“I can't wait,” she groaned. “I need you so much. Please…please give me what I want, Rakim?”
There was a trembling quality to his laugh, and she could tell from that alone that his control was on the brink of snapping.
“And what is that you want, beautiful little one?” he teased. “Can you say it?”
His hand had never stopped moving. She knew what he wanted now. He had taught her to be incredibly blunt about what he could do to her. Anna had stammered and stuttered at first, but now when she knew that the rewards could be so powerful, so wonderful and amazing, she usually didn't hesitate.
This time was somehow different. He had asked her what she wanted, and though she wanted the pleasure that it seemed he alone could give her, there was something else that she wanted as well.
“I want you,” she said, her voice clear and without trembling. “You're what I want, nothing else.”
For a moment, he froze, and she wondered if she had done something wrong. Was that not something she was supposed to say? Had she committed some kind of faux pas that a more sophisticated lover would have avoided?
Anna started to stammer an apology, but then his mouth slammed down over hers, one hand coming up to cradle her face. The kiss took her breath away, and if there was something dark about it, there was also something deeper about it too. She didn't understand, but in some way, it was different from all the other kisses that they had shared.
“You are the most enchanting woman I have met in a long time,” he growled between kisses. “Be careful that I do not simply take you with me, far away from everything you know.”
How could she tell him that that was precisely what she wanted? He obliterated everything else. Next to him, the rest of the world looked dull and empty, but when she was with him, she felt vibrant and alive.
She started to say that, but then his hands were shifting her. With deft motions, he removed her sweater and her bra. She was completely naked on the mountaintop, and she reveled in the exposure, how the wind caressed her skin and the sun warmed it.
He didn't bother to undress himself. Instead, Rakim simply opened the buttons of his fly. When his member pushed out, dark with blood and longing for her, Anna nearly groaned with need.
“I don't want to wait any longer,” she whimpered, and deep inside, she knew the truth of it. His clever fingers had kept her on the edge of arousal for so long that she felt something would snap if she did not gain her relief soon.
“You won't,” Rakim promised.
With no more warning than that, he lifted her onto his hips, her legs draped down on either side of his body. With one sure thrust, he speared the center of her, freezing her with the intense wave of pleasure it brought her. His strong hands on her hips held her still, and all she could do was bear the sensation as it rampaged through her.
“Beautiful woman,” he crooned, and then he started lifting her and lowering her on his cock, making both of them groan with the pleasure it gave them.
For a moment, Anna marveled at his strength, but then the waves of fire carried her away. Her body tensed, her hands clenching his shirt. The fact that he was clothed while she was naked only made her hotter, and sooner than she would have thought possible, she was clenching around him.
“Oh, oh god, Rakim, Rakim, I can't...”
“Yes you can,” he said through ground teeth. “Do it for me, darling. Come for me. Let me see how much you want me, how much you need this thing between us.”
That was all it took. One moment she was tense on the precipice, and the next, she was toppling over the edge. Her shriek of pleasure echoed through the mountaintop, and she clenched her hands so hard in his shirt that she heard a ripping sound. The pleasure that tore through her body was as wild as an out-of-control blaze, something she could never hope to control. Instead, all Anna could do was ride it until she was thrown panting and spent down on Rakim's chest, her entire body still shaking.
He found his own pleasure just a few moments after she did. His hands clamped hard on her hips, burying himself deep inside her one more time as he spilled. The liquid heat of him sent a deep pulse of rightness and perfection through her. It was strange, but her communion with this man made it something that she wanted, something that she needed.
Anna found herself looking down into his face as he came to his own peak. Rakim looked as if he was a beautiful marble statue carved from the finest minerals and then given life. Now, though, when he was out of breath and flushed, there was something gorgeously human about him.
When Rakim's breath stilled, she couldn't stop herself from leaning down to kiss him. His mouth was softer than she had ever felt it, and when she felt him smile into her kiss, there was that flutter of excitement in her belly again.
“Did you know that you are an exceptional woman?” he asked, and she laughed.
“I think that you are the exceptional one,” she demurred, but Rakim shook his head.
“No, if you were not exceptional, I would not bring you to the capitol with me.”
Anna laughed.
“Of course, my master,” she teased. “Anything you say.”
He beamed at her, and she blinked.
“Good. Then you can pull your affairs together in say, a day, and we can be there by the day after tomorrow.”
“Wait, what?”
He lifted her to her feet, handing over her clothes. She felt as if she had been pushed to sea. Everything was happening too fast, and she had no idea what was happening at all.
“I think you will like it there,” he said with satisfaction. “It is my true home, a place where science and art and music and industry all come together to create a city the likes of which the world has never known before.”
“I know about Abu Dhabi,” Anna said, grasping on to anything she could in a world that suddenly seemed to have slipped its axis. “I spent a day there when I first arrived in the country...”
“Believe me when I say that you have never truly seen the city until you have seen it with me,” Rakim said with assurance. “I can take you to see all of my city, all of what it has to offer.”
Rakim continued to talk about the city while she dressed, but when she was fully clothed, she turned to him with dismay.
“I can't go with you to Abu Dhabi!” she exclaimed. “I could never!”
He looked at her, his head slightly tilted and a frown on his face. She started to back away, but he looped his hand around her wrist, holding her still. If it hadn't been for his grip, she might have flown away, rendered lighter than a feather by her shock.
“What are you saying?” he asked in a tone that was frankly baffled. “Why in the world wouldn't you?”
“I couldn't...I'm not...I'm not a woman who goes out in high society!” Anna exclaimed. “Did you somehow forget what I am?”
His gaze darkened dangerously, and he pulled her towards him, not easing until her body was flush with his and she had to look up into his ice-blue gaze.
“You should remember yourself,” he said, his voice pleasant. “I forget nothing, and I know very well what you are. You are my woman. It does not matter whether I found you in a library, in a hole in the ground or in the harem of another man. Right now, you are mine.”
Anna felt panic fall over her, and she wrapped two hands around his larger one. She had to make him understand.
“You have to listen to me,” she said. “I'm not a society girl. I'm a librarian. I can't dance, I hide in the background at large parties, and I can't...I can't be what you think I am.”
She could feel her heart beating faster. Anna suddenly knew how caged birds felt, beating their wings against golden bars. She knew that she was going to start spiraling out of control, but then Rakim pulled her close. His body, large and solid, was comforting. Grateful, she clung to him.
“You'll be fine,” he said firmly. “I promise. You'll be completely fine.”
She smiled at him, but deep down, she wasn't sure.