ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance (96 page)

Suddenly, Ahmed perked up. “You mean the leggy redhead from last night?”

Rahm nodded, almost bashfully – even protectively. “You mean, the one who shut you down?”

Ahmed laughed riotously, tamping out his second cigarette the same way he had the first and field stripping it so the tobacco that remained flew away on the soft, sultry breeze high atop the penthouse balcony.

He shrugged, stiffening slightly and, unlike Ahmed, flipping his extinguished cigarette out into the air. “If you knew the first thing about business, my friend,” Rahm explained, only half-joking, “you’d realize that this is the first stage of the negotiations.”

Ahmed arched on thick, midnight black eyebrow. “Negotiations?”

“All sex is a negotiation, Ahmed,” Rahm explained patiently, enjoying the rare moment of male bonding that was so rare in his life. The men he usually spoke to were either a.) business rivals or b.) employees, leaving little time for one-on-one discussions about anything other than his finances or his schedule.

Ahmed snorted, leaning against the balcony railing at his side and crossing his large, tattooed arms skeptically. “Please, boss, edify me.”

Rahm leaned against his own railing, facing his bodyguard, buying himself a little time. He’d meant the statement as a throwaway comment, but now thought a little harder about what he’d meant. “Well,” he began, eyes returning Ahmed’s curious gaze. “Think about it: you meet a woman, and there is either instant attraction or not-so-instant. Instant attraction makes the negotiations a little easier, but not always foolproof.”

“Hold up, boss,” Ahmed snorted, waving his big hands for emphasis. “How can you screw up something as simple as instant attraction?”

Rahm shrugged. “She might have a table of friends waiting on her who won’t let her go home with a stranger,” he said, remembering how reluctant Carly’s tablemates had been to see her go the night before. “She might have work tomorrow, or a roommate or have just gotten over a bad breakup with a guy who looks just like you. There can be a 101 ways you can fuck up ‘lust at first sight,’ trust me.”

“And when it’s not ‘lust at first sight,’ boss? What then?”

Rahm nodded, eager to explain. “That’s when you really have to learn to negotiate. To listen to what they’re saying and use it to your advantage.”

“Such as?” Ahmed asked, curiously, inching closer all the same – as if to hear better.

“Let’s say she just broke up with a guy who looks just like you,” Rahm said. “That would be a deal breaker for a lot of girls, and a lot of guys, but actually it’s an advantage because if she dated him at all, there will still be some feelings left over him. If you’re patient, and skilled, and careful, and listen, you can tap into those feelings until the attraction turns irresistible.”

Ahmed snorted, waving a big, dismissive hand. “I think I’ll just stick to getting them drunk and horny, thanks.”

Rahm nodded. “I’m usually in complete agreement, my friend,” he said, clapping the big guy on the even bigger shoulder. “But when you have as much sex as I do, that kind of willing compliance gets… boring… after awhile.”

“Boring? Boss, you’re usually with a different girl each night, each one sexier than the last, in all shapes and sizes. Black, white, Latina, full-figured, rail thin, supermodels, actresses, debutants and sluts. How can that ever get boring?”

“Trust me, my friend, those kinds of girls are all the same. They’re not fucking me, they’re fucking their idea of me.”

Ahmed rolled his intense green eyes. “Idea of you or the real you, boss, they’re still in bed with you.”

“Perhaps,” Rahm sighed, turning from his friend, confidante, protector and employee to peer down at the bustling city streets lit with neon and sulfur down below. “Their bodies might be in bed with you, but their minds are a million miles away, already thinking of what they can get from you. A shopping trip here, a platinum bracelet there, a watch or tiara or a gander at your private yet.”

Rahm felt the truth of his words sink in with every soft, sad syllable, recalling the countless women who’d lain beneath him, writhing away, panting and moaning, sweating and trembling, muttering words they’d know he’d love, praising his prowess as he panted and pounded between their legs. But in their eyes was the empty, hollow greed that saw past the chiseled good looks he worked so hard to attain. As easy as it was to seduce women with his looks, his charm, his freedom and, naturally, his money, for Rahm at least it was becoming more work than pleasure.

The very thought of going out, going through the motions, the noisy nightclubs and vapid small talk, the familiar pattern and paint-by-numbers motions it would take to get the hottest girl in the club away from the bar and into his Rolls Royce seemed like so much drudgery.

“Boss,” Ahmed said, clapping him on the shoulder then squeezing persuasively. “You’re over thinking all this.”

Rahm felt the tension leave his body as his bodyguard’s giant hand massaged the tension from the space between his shoulders. “Yeah?” he asked in a soft, malleable voice.

“Yeah,” Ahmed assured him. “Quit using your big head so much and start letting your small one make more of the decisions.”

Rahm shook his head, shrugging off both his lethargy and his bodyguard’s hands at the same time. “That’s where you’re wrong, my friend,” he said, eager to rid himself of the long, stilted day spent staring at not one, not two, but three computer monitors. “Both my heads are big, that’s the problem!”

Ahmed’s laughter filled the balcony as he followed his boss back inside the luxurious condo. “That’s where you’re wrong,” he thundered, following Rahm to his room to prepare for another evening out on the town. “I’ve been forced to watch you shower one too many times, boss. It’s not so big.”

He murmured her name, breath hot in her ear as his large, thick fingers raced to unbutton her lacy white blouse. Despite their fervor he took his time, left hand pinning her arms above her head defenselessly as she squirmed beneath his velvet tongue and warm, silken breath.

The fingers of his right hand danced along the soft white fabric of her blouse, gently tugging the hem free from the waistband of her sensible black work skirt and easing it to either side of her heaving, tender breasts. It had been so long since a man had undressed her that way, or any way, that Carly was more vulnerable than usual to her overloaded libido.

Every glance of his skin against her own sent lightning bolts racing through her veins, forcing her to bite down on her lower lip, already trembling and sore, to keep from crying out in unintelligible grunts, moans and curses – and he was only getting started!

As if sensing it, Rahm took his time, tenderly cupping the bottom swell of each breast, the heat of his flesh searing through the gauzy black material that separated his from her own. Then, as if testing even his own patience, Rahm expertly unclasped the bra at the front and it fell away, making her gasp at the sensation as his fingers immediately raced to dance between each nipple, tenderly rasping them to a heightened stiffness that sent a throbbing, velvet pulse through her veins each time his thumb or forefinger elicited a murmuring, mumbling pant.

She was heaving now, pressed against the wall, hands still yanked high above her, Rahm’s grip both firm and tender at the same time, her constant wriggling against his ironclad grip only serving to heighten the sensation of lack of control as he continued to dominate her with his single hand. Her breasts fully aroused, nipples stiff and tender, Rahm moved on to her quivering belly, soft fingertips dancing down her rib cage until dusting her waistline before unzipping and promptly slipping off her skirt.

She helped him by kicking it off, her work heels clattering on the hard wood floors as she stepped out of each one, naked now save for her black cotton panties. Even those were no match for Rahm’s roving hand, so expert at teasing pleasure above – and below – her undergarments. As his fingers traveled along the front panel, damp with desire and lust, they met the quivering ridge of her mound, flesh meeting flesh, the explosive combination making her cry out and bolt upright… from her bed!

Carly peered around, panting and damp with sweat, peering through rapidly blinking eyes at the room surrounding her. Her room; her bedroom. Not the foyer where she’d dreamed Rahm had taken her moments after stepping inside her south Beach condo.

Disappointed yet still throbbing and damp with desire, Carly moaned aloud in the quiet darkness and collapsed back onto her twisted sheets. The sultry air outside her bedroom sliders rustled the curtains on either side, caressing her with the warm embrace as she peered down at her body, naked and aglow in the moonlight.

She found her panties wadded and dangling precariously from one ankle, her usual night shirt tossed haphazardly to one side, her nipples hard, her skin flushed, her belly trembling, her mound on fire as her right hand drifted inevitably toward the throbbing joint between her legs.

She moaned aloud, lifting her left hand above her head to grip the iron rails of her retro headboard, right hand drifting down her trembling belly and toward her aching mound much as Rahm’s had in her dream – her wet dream, and the third since they’d met.

Every night, it seemed, she went to sleep chastely dressed in her pink cotton panties and baggy men’s V-neck T-shirt, only to find herself writhing and wet and naked in the middle of the night. Now the moonlight danced along her gently trembling fingers, the tips wet and greedy as they crept closer to the dampness between her legs.

She closed her eyes, trying to find Rahm once more, his full, damp lips, soft brown eyes and matching skin, so hard and soft at the same time, yet it was no use. She saw only her naked desperation and, eyes wide once more, watched her fingers dance in the dark until she moaned and cried out and climaxed in a frenzy of twisted sheets and squeaking mattress.

But once was not enough, once was never enough, to still her mind in the dark, sultry quiet of her master bedroom. Curtains fluttering, moonlight swimming, eyes blurry and stinging from sweat, Carly greedily mined another throbbing, shuddering orgasm – then another, and another, and several more – from her insatiable bud before finally collapsing in a quivering, sweaty, embarrassed heap atop her wrinkled sheets.

Curling into a ball, heart pounding, breath ragged and deep, Carly gently willed herself back to sleep, another busy day stretching out before her in another few hours, filled only with the promise of dull, dismal figures and the hope that maybe today, unlike the day before, Rahm might cave first and reach out to her after all.

Rahm was restless, but not in his usual random, skirt-chasing way. He’d scratched that itch the night before, and the night before that, and yet he still felt the irresistible pull toward Carly. If only he could bring himself to lose face and calling out to her first. He already had her information; she was a quick phone call to her office or cell phone or, barring that, an instant text message away. And yet he hesitated, not wanting to “lose” to her once more.

He’d already lost one account, and incurred the wrath of his father as a result. He couldn’t risk looking “weak” or “soft” yet again, even if it was only to Carly herself. He needed a way to bump into her again, and wondered how when, like himself, she was an admitted workaholic.

He also wanted a night off from Ahmed and the other three bodyguards scheduled with him that night. He knew his father frowned on Rahm going out alone, but he was a grown man, after all, and whenever Ahmed and the other bodyguards were around, they always wound up at some strip club or bordello, which is the last place a woman like Carly Stanton might be.

He paced his master bedroom suite, dressing casually for the evening and regarding his reflection in the mirror like a teenager getting ready to go to his first prom. Were his jeans too faded? Should he wear the black pair instead? Was his sweater too grey? Should he wear the maroon one with the thin black stripes? Black sneakers or the Italian leather loafers?

He sighed and reached for his wallet and keys before sliding out his sleek cell phone and texting Ahmed’s private number with a simple four-digit code. It was a simple message that meant “take the night off,” and both knew that it meant Rahm was on his own for the evening.

Of course, Ahmed would stalk him alone, lurking in the shadows and never letting him out of his sight, but at least no one else would see him – least of all Rahm. It was enough to know his father’s wishes of 24-hour a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year protection were going heeded even as he slipped out for a quiet, but hopefully not solitary, night on the town.

He slipped from his master bedroom suite, the bodyguards in their own apartment – slightly smaller but no less opulent – across the hall. Used to them springing from the front door the minute his opened, Rahm smirked at the illusion of privacy even as he entered the private elevator for their floor.

He felt vaguely “naughty” slipping out without the boys, but knowing Ahmed would be there in the dark, shadowing his every footstep, made him feel secure in ways he couldn’t quite understand. Was he so dependent on his father, the “real” sheikh, that he couldn’t go out alone without seeing boogeymen in every doorway? Or had he just been so pampered in his upbringing that bodyguards were a part of his daily routine?

What he wouldn’t give to simply wake up in the morning, get dressed and go to work, unencumbered by the routine security checks and passwords, the double checks and roundabouts that filled his current days. Though he reveled in his luxurious life and enjoying the trappings of true royalty, Rahm yearned for a simplicity that eluded him. The ability to roam around undetected or grab a quick nightcap without coordinating the movements a team of six highly trained operatives and mapping it out in advance.

Now, pushing out of the ornate lobby of his lavish condominium complex, he nodded to the doorman and felt the warm, sultry night embrace him. He was glad he’d gone with the black sneakers, the pavement soft and smooth beneath his feet as they hurried toward some uncertain destination. He had no idea where he wanted to go, only that he needed to go – to go out, away from his father, the sheikh, away from his business, Platinum Dunes, away from his high-tech home office and his bodyguards, his duties and responsibilities, his royal lineage and all that entailed.