Chapter Fifteen
Tarif watched in contemplative silence as Anisah slowly stirred into consciousness. It was almost dawn now, and she had been asleep for over nine hours. It was also entirely expected, considering how unused her body was to sex – and the fact that he had her orgasm five times before she had literally succumbed to a deep sleep after their last round of fucking.
He had expected his need for her to have significantly waned by now – or for it to at least be manageable – but instead it was the opposite. His hunger for her body was as strong as ever, maybe even stronger, bordering on obsession.
The way his body burned at the sight of her every moment was proof of it, and that was exactly what was happening now, with his cock twitching demandingly under his pants when the covers slipped down Anisah’s body and exposed a tantalizing amount of her breasts as she turned to her side.
He watched her clouded eyes roam around her surroundings slowly, as if she was trying to figure out where she was. He waited patiently until her gaze finally found hers, and when the confusion finally faded from her gaze, his lips slowly curved in a smile of challenge. He knew that whatever she had to say, it would not be what he expected –
“Just so we’re clear, this doesn’t change things, okay? I still don’t want to fall in love with you.”
And it was not.
Leaning back against his lounge chair, the sheikh took his time answering purely to provoke her, and he was rewarded almost instantly when she glowered at him. Still, he waited, and only when she opened her mouth to speak did he ask lazily, “Are you certain about that?”
Anisah threw the sheikh a fulminating look at the taunting tone of his voice. “Of course I mean it! I am not so shallow to allow myself to be influenced by a night of sex---”
“Was it good, by the way?”
“Was what good?”
“The sex,” the sheikh drawled. “Was it good?”
Her mouth opened and closed.
It was good.
It was really good.
It was unbelievably good.
“It was okay,” she said finally and tried her best not to turn red when the sheikh smirked at her answer.
Stop acting like a ninny, Anisah!
Anisah pulled the covers up to her neck in an effort to regain her composure. It must be because she was still naked under this cursedly thin sheet while the sheikh was fully dressed. That was why she was acting so unnaturally silly. Her lack of clothes made her feel vulnerable and exposed, and it was why her heart was banging so hard against her chest and why her breasts started to feel swollen and heavy when she noticed the possessive heat in his gaze.
That was all, she told herself doggedly, and nothing else.
Squaring her shoulders, she met the sheikh’s gaze with a scowl and said as firmly as she could, “I meant what I said, Your Highness. This is still an affair in the guise of a temporary engagement, we’re still free to break things off whenever we want, and you’re still not – ”
“Has anyone told you you’re a romantic?” the sheikh asked with a grin.
“Well…” Anisah had to think about this.
“Because whoever did was lying his head off.”
Anisah made a face, and he grinned. “To say the truth is to show you respect, nem?”
“You---you---oh!” How she hated it when he ended up having the last word! Annoyed at being verbally thwarted, Anisah made a furious yank of the covers in a fit of frustration, and she swung her legs off the bed as soon as she had the covers wrapped securely around her body. She knew she was acting like a child throwing a tantrum, but she didn’t care. She just needed time and space to think –
Oh!
The sheikh had captured her wrist from behind and she found herself forced to turn around. “Please let go---” Her voice trailed off.
The sheikh was holding out a small box open in his hands, and in it was the most exquisite ring: a thirty-carat diamond surrounded by a band of amethysts.
Anisah paled. “Sheikh---”
“Tarif, my sweet,” the sheikh chided. “I’m your fiancé now, remember?”
When he started to take the ring out of the box, Anisah unthinkingly hid both her hands behind her back, forgetting in her panic that this would cause the sheet to fall off her body. All she could think about was preventing him from doing so terrifyingly symbolic.
The ring the sheikh held in his hand didn’t look like something he’d have purchased from Tiffany’s or one of the country’s famous jewelers. Instead, it looked old, the kind that seemed to have passed from generation to generation, the kind that only a woman who had every right to be the sheikh’s bride should – wait a minute.
Why was the sheikh grinning?
A frown worked its way on her forehead as she slowly looked down, following his line of sight, and that was when she realized he had been staring at her naked breasts all this time.
Oh, curse this life!
The sheikh captured her left hand as she hastily bent down to retrieve the covers, and Anisah ended up struggling to wrap the sheet around her body single-handedly. “Please let go---” Her voice faltered when the sheikh tightened his grip while holding the ring over her captured hand.
Tarif’s broad shoulders rocked with silent laughter as Anisah started struggling against his hold like he had turned into a serial killer. “Cease your struggles---”
“No!”
“You know you won’t win---”
“Nooooooo!”
But it was as the sheikh had said, and Anisah cringed when the sheikh finally managed to slide the ring down her finger, and to top things off, the darn thing even proved to be an infernally perfect fit.
Oh, may Allah save her, but how did it come to this?
The sheikh’s lips pressed together as he watched Anisah stare at the ring like it was a ghost wrapped around her finger. He knew he should be offended, but if anything, this only made him want her more. “What do you think of it, anisdi?” he asked huskily.
But his beautiful harpy only glared at him in stubborn silence.
“Very well then…” Grabbing her hand, he started sucking her fingers one by one and was rewarded by the sound of her whimpers. “If you don’t answer me…” His mouth moved down, and he licked a line against her soft palm. “This is how I’ll punish you.” The sheikh’s glittering eyes captured hers as she shuddered helplessly in his hold. “Do you understand?”
Anisah thought about saying no, but then his mouth started to move threateningly closer to her still tingling palm, and she snarled, “Yes.”
“Is it really that bad to have my ring on your finger?”
“Yes,” she burst out feelingly, but the sheikh only chuckled. She looked down at the sheikh’s ring, and her mood grew more morose. How did things get so complicated? She hadn’t even been able to fully adjust to the fact that she was the sheikh’s lover yet, and now she was his fake fiancée?
“It is growing on you now, nem?”
Her cheeks flushed at the sheikh’s wickedly teasing tone, but because she didn’t want to answer him in a straightforward mansion, she prevaricated instead, asking stiltedly, “Is this your mother’s, Your Highness?”
Tarif’s lip curled at the thought of having to give Anisah something that belonged to a woman like his mother, and his voice ended up sharper than intended. “Of course not.” Unpleasant memories started crowding his mind, and a mask of cold disgust fell over the sheikh’s handsome face. “I’d never give you something like – ”
Too late Tarif noticed Anisah’s stricken look, and he broke off when he realized how his words could be so disastrously misconstrued.
Fuck.
“You misunderstood, Tory.”
Anisah didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her mind was whirling, and she almost wished she had the power to rewind time. If she did, she would have chosen to be less stubborn and proud. If she did, she would have forced herself to ignore the improperness of it all and just let the sheikh place his ring on her finger.
If only.
But now it was too late, and as his words echoed endlessly in her mind, hurt and confusion distorted reality, and when she looked at him it was not herself – Anisah – she saw reflected in the sheikh’s eyes. Instead, she saw Sidqi Kahveci’s daughter, and she was being judged all over again.
“Tory---”
“No!” She recoiled from his reach, her body now shuddering as memories lashed her mind. What was once beautiful and special now felt obscene and vile – oh, how could she have given herself to him so easily?
“I am not lying, anisdi,” Tarif said forcefully. “It is truly not what you think.”
Such pretty words, she thought sickly, only now she knew they were just that. Pretty words did not a good man make, and as she lifted her gaze to his, she vowed not to let herself be fooled by the sheikh again. “Say whatever you want, Your Highness,” she said flatly. “It no longer matters---”
“I am not lying, dammit!”
“Then tell me - what else could you have meant?” she demanded bitterly. “Tell me then! What else could it be?”
Shame threatened to swallow him up as Tarif thought of the things he had meant – and the sick, deplorable things he had long buried at the back of his mind in hopes that he would never remember them again.
“D-Do you see?” The sheikh’s silence was like a slap to her face, and she felt something in her threaten to crack. “You were lying.”
A muscle ticked at the sheikh’s jaw at the devastated look on Anisah’s face. Ah God, he wished he could tell her the truth -
But he could not. Not even for Anisah.
“Should it not be enough for you that I say it is not so?”
That was all he was going to say? Did he think she was that big a fool to let things go simply on his say so? The cracks inside of her were bigger now, and as she struggled to keep herself together, anger came to Anisah’s rescue, and she heard herself say, “Maybe it would be if I thought you were as honorable as your cousins---”
“I would advise you to watch your tongue, anisdi.” Tarif’s tone was savage. Her words cut him deep. They were too damn close to how his own mother had used to compare him to his other cousins, and in her ranting, her own son would always come up lacking.
Why can you not be as brave as Altair?
Why can you not be as smart as Malik?
Why can you not be as skilled as Rayyan?
Why can you not be as dignified as Khalil?
The sheer rage in the sheikh’s eyes was terrifying. Anisah knew to speak another word would be a big mistake, but she just couldn't stop herself. He told her he wanted to make her smile, and she had believed him. She had believed him despite everything, the way she had so desperately tried to believe in her father despite everything – and it was that she could never forgive the sheikh for.
“Does it hurt to hear the truth, Your Highness?” She had seen in his eyes that he had despised the way she had compared him to the other Al-Atassi sheikhs, and it was this she focused on. “Did you really think just because I was attracted to you, I’d think you were on the same footing as the others?” It was a lie, but she was mindless with pain now, and hurting him had become her lifeline.
“I am warning you one last time.” Tarif’s fists clenched. “Compare me to my brothers again---”
“And what?” Anisah spat. “You’ll do something that will just prove what I thought all along---”
“Get out!” The sheikh lunged to his feet in a fit of fury. “You may be a great fuck, but that’s all you still are. Someone to fuck---”
Anisah’s hand connected with his cheek in a vicious slap, its force enough for the sheikh’s cheek to snap to the other side. When he looked back, he saw her rushing out of the room – but he did not stop her.