The Sheikh's Hidden Heir: Secret Sheikh, Secret Baby / The Sheikh's Claim / The Return of the Sheikh

CHAPTER FOUR

STEPPING out onto the freezing grey street and heading for the underground, Felicity just wanted to get home.

Her clothes, as promised, had been laundered and delivered, and looked better than when she had put them on this time yesterday morning. She had set her alarm for six, determined to get out early and not to have to suffer the embarrassment of seeing him at breakfast.

She’d overreacted appallingly—she knew that.

A simple goodnight would have sufficed.

But it wasn’t his kiss that had terrified her, it was the thought of where it might lead—where, with a man like Karim, it would lead. She couldn’t stand the shame of a disappointing end. Better to just walk away now. Karim oozed sexuality—and she could hardly beat him down with a stick, hardly keep chatting her way through dinner only to dodge his caress at the end of the night.

‘Morning!’ She hadn’t noticed him jogging towards her, and she jumped when she did. He was dressed in grey sweats—a world away from the suited man she had dined with last night, but still impossibly gorgeous. Slightly breathless, he gave her a guarded smile. ‘Off to get your train?’

‘The line’s running, apparently—I just rang and checked.’

Karim couldn’t be bothered with small talk. He was annoyed, and glad that he’d caught her so that he could tell her so.

‘You really didn’t have to run off crying last night—saying no works very well for me.’

‘I just…’ She screwed her eyes closed in confusion and embarrassment—because she had kissed him back, for a moment had actually forgotten. He deserved some sort of an explanation—except it was impossible to come up with one. ‘I just felt things were moving along too fast.’

‘It was a kiss,’ Karim said. ‘And good kisses tend to move things along.’

He was still annoyed—but not just with her.

She was a nice girl. And nice girls wanted romance, kisses, flowers, phone calls—none of which Karim minded. But he wanted sex too. He stared down at her miserable face and it moved him—because if he’d had time on his side she might very well have been worth the effort.

Only he didn’t have time.

‘I’ve got to get going,’ Felicity said, and he had to get going as well—back to his last taste of freedom before he took on the full weight of the crown.

So why was he calling her back? ‘What if I want to take you for dinner tonight?’

‘You’d have an extremely long drive!’ Felicity attempted a smile, but it wavered when he shrugged.

‘I don’t mind travelling,’ Karim said.

‘Let’s just leave it.’ Tears stung her eyes as she stared at this beautiful man, who deserved so much better than her truckload of issues. ‘Look, it isn’t you, it’s me!’

The pedestrian crossing was bleeping, the little green man waving her over—she could see the underground and just wanted to dive into it, wanted to fade into oblivion in the crowd. She shook him off and ran—but she was wearing heels and he was wearing running shoes. The crowd swallowed her, and she hoped she had disappeared into a mass of dark suits as she took the escalator.

Karim was enraged—confused and enraged! Who was this woman who used his lines? Who was this woman who denied his kisses, his invitations? Did she know who he was? He plunged into the underground. Okay, she didn’t know just who he was, but that was part of the game—he won on charm alone.

Except with Felicity he wasn’t winning.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He was beside her, with people tutting as he stood where they wanted to walk. He pressed in beside her, taking the escalator with her.

‘Just leave it!’ Felicity hissed.

‘I don’t want to.’

‘And you always get what you want, do you?’ Felicity’s voice was curt—derisive, even—as she looked at him and saw him for the rich, spoilt playboy that he was. ‘Well, not this time.’

They were off the escalator now, and he took her wrist. ‘What are you running from?’

‘You!’ she said loudly. ‘You just assume that I’ll sleep with you because you bought me dinner—’

‘I just offered to drive for hours to take you to dinner again…’ Okay, he’d had no intention of driving—his pilot would have taken care of that side of things—but he had offered her way more than he intended and yet still she refused him. ‘What’s so scary about that?’

‘Nothing,’ Felicity snapped. ‘Can’t you accept that I’m just not attracted to you?’

It was a lie, an utter lie, and he dashed it with his mouth, kissing away her fibs. She could hear the tube train screeching into the station, feel the rush of wind around her legs, the thick flow of people walking past. But they all faded as he pressed hard into her. His tongue parted her lips and she felt flames lick around her stomach, felt a stroking deep inside that she’d never felt before, that none of Paul’s fruitless attempts had ever yielded. And still Karim kissed her, his mouth capturing hers so thoroughly she couldn’t breathe, didn’t want to breathe, could only think about kissing him back.

‘I beg to differ.’ He pulled his head back.

She broke down then, in a way she never had before.

Karim stood for the longest time, then pulled out an immaculate handkerchief and flinched just a touch as she blew her nose on his royal coat of arms. He should walk away—because it wasn’t his problem, and clearly there was a problem. He was here for his final fling, his last taste of life before he took on full royal responsibility.

But he felt responsible now.

Tears rarely moved Karim. Hers did.

Walk away, a voice told him. He could not.

After a brief hesitation he took her in his arms, curiously relieved that she didn’t stiffen or shrug him off. Unfamiliar tenderness—compassion, even—was filling him as he led her away from the underground and further complicated his life.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘SHE didn’t suffer…’ Karim said to Felicity, but for the benefit of the curious onlookers as they took the lift to his suite. ‘We have to take solace in that.’

Her face was in his chest. Her tears were at the gulping stage now, and from the depths emerged the glimmer of a smile. It warmed her that he would do that for her—would soothe the sting of shame as her private misery was momentarily on public display.

She could only vaguely remember getting back to the hotel, with him holding her, leading her through the streets. She had baulked at his offer of a secluded table in the restaurant, and she might live to regret the folly of her ways, but at some very deep level she trusted him. After last night she knew that for Karim no meant no, and the fact he was a doctor helped too. But it wasn’t just that. Yesterday something had been triggered inside her, and Karim was the source—the source of a feeling that had always eluded her. And though she’d tried to walk away, now she willingly walked back.

Even in her highly emotive state there was a slight flash of wonder as they stepped into his suite—if hers was gorgeous, this was truly a palace—yet all she felt was safe. There was actually nothing sexy in it. She sat on his sofa and centred herself for a few moments as Karim rang down and ordered breakfast, then poured her a large brandy. She shook her head.

‘It’s seven a.m.!’

‘We don’t choose when these things happen!’ Karim said, and so she took a sip, and then another. She shivered as violently as she had yesterday, after the accident, despite the warmth of the room, but it was she who broke the gentle silence.

‘I shouldn’t have accepted your invitation for dinner.’

‘Are you involved with someone?’ Karim asked, because that would make sense. Their attraction had been so fierce it would have been hard to deny it—easier, perhaps, to lie a little, to give in to the forces that had propelled them from the moment he had walked into the conference room.

‘We broke up.’ Felicity took another sip of her drink, then put it down—because nothing could calm her till she admitted the truth. ‘I’m not very good at relationships.’

‘Neither am…’ Karim started, but then halted. Because even gentle humour was out of place at this time.

‘There’s no point starting something. It’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to me…’ She wasn’t making much sense. ‘Paul and I were together for a year and we weren’t able to…I mean, I wasn’t able to…’

She actually couldn’t say it, but Karim got to the painful point. ‘You were unable to have sex?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know I am a doctor?’ He watched as his words were absorbed and she nodded. She understood that at this moment he was a doctor—which was maybe why she felt safe, maybe why she had let him lead her to his suite. He was a doctor—another one who would tell her it could be sorted. ‘And I am telling you—you are not frigid.’

She shook her head. She had heard it so many times before.

‘Felicity.’ His voice was firm and so assured—so absolutely assured that she wanted to believe him. ‘You are not frigid.’

Yet no matter how she might want to believe him, how assured he sounded, she knew better.

‘I’ve seen doctors, psychologists. I had a boyfriend for a year and we tried everything. All I ever feel is scared.’

‘Did they work out why?’ He didn’t flinch as she spat out a mirthless laugh. ‘Your sister is ill?’

‘She’s anorexic,’ Felicity said. ‘Well, she’s recovering.’

‘And your mother suffers with extreme anxiety?’

‘I know all that.’ Felicity clawed at her scalp—because she was sick of it—sick of going over and over it in the hope of a different outcome. Always the result was the same. ‘My father was a controlling drunk. There was no abuse as such…’ She hated all the questions, the assumptions—because they were all wrong.

‘Abuse does not have to be sexual or physical to be abuse.’

‘No…’ Felicity breathed, glad that at least he understood that—that her father’s controlling ways had been enough to damage her in a way that wasn’t as obvious as her mother’s or Georgie’s. She had been left with an intense private fear of giving trust, of losing control, that couldn’t be logically explained.

He didn’t make her try.

‘You have never once felt aroused?’

‘No. Never.’

‘Not once in your life?’

‘No…’ Her eyes darted to his, and then back down. This was the reason she was here—because yesterday she had! Yesterday Karim had flicked a switch. She didn’t know how, but she wanted to know why.

He stood torn with rare indecision. He was moved by this beautiful selfless woman who delivered babies, who had so bravely saved a life yesterday, who put her family first and was, for whatever reason, holding a part of herself back, too nervous to trust. The clock was ticking on his last days of freedom. He could be out there enjoying himself, but he actually wanted to be here. He wanted to spend his last days with this shy, deep stranger, to bring passion and joy into her life—and of course there would be a reward for him too!

‘I’m not being a doctor now,’ he said. ‘Because as a doctor I cannot speak like this. But as a man I can fix it.’

‘Paul said the same,’ Felicity sneered—because his was a typical response, such an arrogant thing to say, and it told her he didn’t really understand.

‘I’m not Paul, though.’

She pressed her fingers into her eyelids, because he had made a vital point.

‘And I am telling you that you are not frigid. I assure you, this can be fixed.’

‘How do you know?’ She was angry at his assumption. ‘How do you know that I’m not just going to feel worse if the world’s sexiest—?’ She stopped then, watched his beautiful mouth curve into a smile, and she cringed back on the sofa but sort of smiled too.

‘Compliment accepted,’ Karim said—and then he stopped smiling, serious now, and knowledgeable too. ‘I can fix it. Because to be frigid, or whatever you choose to call it, means you are unable or unwilling. You think you are unable, but you are willing. In the lecture theatre, when we stood in the dark near each other, were you aroused then?’

‘I don’t know—I don’t know…’ She was trying to stand up, like an animal trying to escape, mortified, confused. He held her wrists.

‘Suppose we took it slowly…’ Karim watched her through narrowed eyes. ‘Suppose you said yes to dinner tonight.’

Tears were spilling out of her eyes as he deliberately said the wrong things, and he knew he was right then—knew he was right to say what he said next.

‘So why don’t we get it out of the way—and then…’ He forced her chin up to see his smile. ‘You can actually enjoy dinner.’

‘I don’t know…’ she breathed. ‘I don’t even know how I felt yesterday.’

‘You were aroused,’ he said. ‘I could feel it, I could smell it, and I could taste it.’

‘How?’

‘Because I was aroused too.’

So she hadn’t been imagining it.

And as he watched his words settle in her mind, Karim knew he was right to do what he did next.

‘This,’ Karim said, guiding her hand to his thigh, ‘was how you were feeling.’

She could feel him beneath her hands, long and thick and hard, and so huge it really brought her no comfort. She went to pull her hand away—because if she hadn’t been able to accommodate Paul, then how the hell could she accommodate Karim—but he was speaking on, talking in low, sensual tones that held her hand there. ‘As I stood in that room I could feel it, and I could feel you. I wanted to go over to you…’ She could feel him stretch beneath her fingers, feel a stirring in him just as she had felt herself. She felt him harden as he spoke, yet still her hand stayed. ‘I could of course do nothing about it. I stood there like this and saved it for later.’

‘For later?’

He glanced to the left, to the bedroom and the massive rumpled unmade bed. ‘Last night after dinner I could have called many women. Yet I wanted you.’

She could feel his manhood steeling upwards, feel the strength of his erection beneath her fingers. A sick excitement built in her as she pictured him on that very bed. She was not even looking at him now, just holding him and staring at the bed.

‘I had you last night, Felicity.’

Oh, she could feel a terror building deep within—only it didn’t exactly feel like fear, more a nervous flurry that was usually evident in her chest, but was much lower now, as his voice rumbled on, as he grew in her hand.

‘I stroked myself and thought of you, and I know you did the same.’

‘No.’ She jerked her hand away. ‘I didn’t. I can’t,’ she begged.

‘But do you want to?’

Did she?

It was a dangerous situation, and yet somehow she had never felt safer. He was beautiful, and for the first time she was starting to feel it was not impossible.

‘Yes…’ It was the most honest she had ever been—because right here, right now, she did want to. With him, with this man who knew how to hold her, how to kiss her, how to talk with her. This man who had known to take her by the hand and walk her back to the hotel. It was reckless and dangerous, and there wasn’t a hope of justifying it, but if she couldn’t do it with him today then she could never do it with anyone.

Here, with this beautiful man, was her chance to start her life over, to cast aside the demons that plagued her. She had never been so attracted to anyone. Oh, yes, physically—but everything about him enthralled her. His rich voice, his piercing eyes. And as for his smile…A smile that was turned on her now…

‘What if I can’t?’ Felicity asked—not angrily this time, but because it was what was worrying her the most.

Still Karim smiled. ‘You worry too much.’

Someone knocked at the door and Karim stood. Felicity’s eyes glanced down to his groin, to all that she had felt, but there was no real evidence of it now—just a long shadow against his lean thigh. As Karim called the butler in, it was like a bubble bursting, and real life invaded. Terror caught up with her as she realised what she had agreed to.

‘I am going now for a shower.’ He gestured to the table that was being laden with food fit for a king. ‘You will eat.’

As the butler exited discreetly, Felicity stood, unsure what to do.

‘Eat!’ Karim called from the shower, as if he could read her mind.

Eat?

She didn’t want to eat, she just wanted to get it over with—which was undoubtedly the wrong way to think, but it was how she felt. She was tempted to turn tail and run, listening to the running water. Oh, Karim didn’t know the extent of her problem, couldn’t understand just how real her fear was. That despite honest, desperate efforts by Paul she was so closed up he couldn’t enter.

Karim took his time showering. He wondered, as he dried off and pulled on a bathrobe, if she would still be there when he came out.

Last night he had wanted her, yet he had sensed her nerves, and as his guest it would have been wrong…

He had wanted her, though.

She had him curious.

Karim shaved himself, and thought about her, then grinned in the mirror as he recalled her words and nearly cut himself as he stared at ‘the world’s sexiest man’!

She was cute, Karim decided, paying closer attention to his heavy overnight growth but his mind was still on Felicity.

Karim read women well—he’d had plenty of practice. Yet Felicity was a challenge—which suited Karim fine.

He loved two things in life—women and challenge. Felicity was both.

He knew she was terrified, knew she was probably expecting him to lie her on the bed and devour her for hours, yet he also knew that would be pointless. She wouldn’t relax when in the back of her mind she would be waiting. Despite her protests, despite her insistence that she didn’t like it, he knew he had aroused her back there in the lecture room. And Karim mused on that as he walked out of the bathroom, to see her nervously sitting there, as if she were waiting for a dental extraction. He realised that only when it was impossible to do anything did she relax.

‘I have to make some phone calls,’ Karim said. ‘Important calls. I am sorry, I cannot avoid them.’

‘Of course!’ Felicity smiled, but inwardly her heart sank.

As he leafed through his diary—no doubt wondering where he could pencil in their ‘sex hour‘—he chatted away in Arabic on the phone, and then switched to English. ‘Tell him to call me back in five minutes!’ His voice was dark and full of foreboding. ‘If he calls back one minute later the deal is off!’

He turned to her. ‘Why don’t you have a bath and relax while I make these calls?’ Karim offered.

Though he probably thought he was saying the right thing, Felicity was tempted to pick up her bag and run. If only it were so easy, she thought wryly. How many bubble baths had Paul run for her? There was no chance of her relaxing, knowing what was coming…why couldn’t anyone understand?

‘Look—’ she gave a brittle smile ‘—I really think I ought to just go…’

‘One moment.’ His phone was bleeping again, and he took the call. But with his free hand he pulled her towards him, rolled his eyes at the intrusion, and chatted as he idly stroked her face. Then, still in between talking, he kissed her cheek—lots of tiny little kisses as he spoke on. When the call had ended, he kissed her more thoroughly.

‘Have a nice bath, and then I will be free…’

‘Okay…’ He was so nice to kiss. Clean-shaven now, he smelt of soap and cologne. His hair had been damp against her cheek as he’d kissed her neck, then returned to her face.

‘Stay there,’ he growled as his blasted phone rang again. He put it on speaker phone, rested it on the dressing table behind them, and proceeded to kiss her again as a nasal voice droned on in the background. ‘They will be calling me back in a few moments.’ Karim smiled at her as he barked his instructions to the phone. ‘Bath!’ he ordered—only she didn’t want to go.

She could feel his arousal pressing into her, could feel his tongue mingling with hers, and it was like being back in the tube station. There was a delicious pull low in her groin as he pressed himself into her.

‘Were you really?’ Felicity pulled away. ‘Last night—were you really thinking of me?’

‘Oh, yes…’ Karim said, lifting her onto the dressing table. He parted her knees slightly, pulling her skirt up around her hips, and Felicity felt her stomach tighten. ‘When you lie in the bath, think of me as last night I thought of you. Like this…’

Fascinated, terrified, she stared down as he parted his robe, her throat constricting at the sight of him. Fear and hopelessness gripped her because she could never accommodate him. And yet he was so exquisitely beautiful. His hand stroked his magnificent member, his fingers loosely gripping the dark skin that she wanted to touch too.

‘I thought of you in that dark conference room. I imagined forgetting everyone was there and walking over…’ He was slowly nudging her knees apart with his hips, stroking against the silk of her knickers. She badly wanted to touch him. ‘I thought of lifting your skirt…’ He could see her arousal on her panties, and he touched it with his tip. He took her hand and guided it to him. She bit on her lip as she felt his velvet-soft skin and the power beneath it.

‘Later,’ Karim said, ‘when I am not so busy, when I have taken this call and you are nice and warm from your bath…’

He was fiddling with her panties, pulling them down in one lithe movement, taking them over her ankles. Then he returned to stand before her, stroking her intimately with the tip of his erection. ‘When there is no chance of us being disturbed…’ He undid her blouse, shrugged it down to her shoulders, then unhooked her bra so her breasts were loose. Lowering his head, he suckled slowly on one nipple, dragging it out as still he pressed at the top of her legs. Her body twitched with each feather-light stroke. Then his mouth returned to hers, kissing her deeply, his tongue probing her, darting in and out as she unfurled inside.

Karim was always prepared, always aware of the value of his seed. Condoms were dotted everywhere in his life, and easily he opened a drawer as still he kissed her. ‘Here.’ He handed her a condom.

‘We can’t now…’

‘Of course not. We will take our time—we have all morning—but it is good to practise.’ He unwrapped the tiny parcel. ‘Later, after your bath, you will slide it on like this…’ Her hands were shaking so much she almost dropped the slippery thing. ‘When you know how to do it, it will be much easier. I will show you…’ He placed it on his tip and then took her trembling hands. ‘Now, roll it down…’

She was terrified she’d scratch him, but she did as told, watching it unfurl over his gorgeous length. ‘See,’ Karim said. ‘It is easy.’

Karim was glad it was on as he parted her and ran his erection over her sweet place; he knew that precious warning drop had already escaped. He had imagined her last night—but she was so much sweeter in the flesh. So pretty and pink and wet, and she was a virgin. Well, suffice to say he was ready! He stared down at her tentative hands and hoped he was doing right by her—because her beauty deserved it. He could hear involuntary moans escape her lips as his thumb worked her clitoris and his fingers crept to her entrance. He felt her tighten, felt her tense refusal, and knew rather than hoped then that he was right to do it this way.

She felt his fingers there and she panicked. But as they moved away she relaxed a touch.

His blasted phone was ringing again, and she knew he had to get it—except she didn’t want him to, was kissing him hard as he pulled back.

‘I have to get that!’

‘I know.’

But he was still kissing her as the phone clicked off, kissing her harder and harder as the message bank bleeped.

‘He’ll call back…’ Karim groaned his apology. ‘Bath, Felicity.’ He was right at her entrance, smiling a rueful smile. ‘You deserve my full attention, and when you come out…’

He was right there, right there, just nudging a little, with tiny, tiny thrusts that went nowhere and yet shot her to orbit, giving her a glimpse of what maybe could be done. Then the blasted phone rang—their five minutes were clearly up.

‘I will just take it…You go and…’

‘Okay…’

‘I really must take it.’

‘I know.’

He was staring down at his sheathed erection, just there at her entrance. Felicity did the same.

‘Soon I will have the whole day.’

‘I know.’

The phone was silent again. He was a tiny way inside her, just the tip of him nudging her, and she was still staring down. His phone would start trilling again soon, and she knew when it did that he’d have to answer. But she didn’t want him to.

‘Look!’ Karim gently ordered her, and she did, staring down at where he was, watching as he pulled out a little way and then pressed in a little more. He shrugged off his bathrobe, his whole delicious naked body in front of her, and she could feel her thighs shaking, feel a pit of want as he slid in just a little more. It was starting to hurt, and she knew she would spasm, but she was saved by the phone. There was utter regret in his eyes as she looked up.

‘Now, if you will forgive me, I really have to…’ And he did. Holding her eyes, he thrust deliciously in, watched the shock of fear as he stabbed inside her, watched the surprise, the bemusement and then the wonder. If it had been anyone but her he would have come at that second, it was almost killing him not to come, and yet he wanted her to relish this moment. There was no triumph, just tenderness as he saw the rapt expression on her face as she looked down.

Oh, it had hurt—did hurt—yet it was a delicious hurt. For Felicity it was like a bizarre out-of-body experience. She was watching it, feeling it, yet unable to comprehend that it was happening to her. He absolutely filled her, guiding her hands to feel him, to feel him slide in and out, till she could look no more—because she was weak, leaning on his shoulder and sucking it—biting it, maybe—as her legs wrapped around his back. And then she felt it.

The it she’d never felt was emerging, the tremble in her thighs spreading, a flash of heat darting up her spine as he bucked fiercely within. And it wasn’t gentle, it was fabulous as he pulled her off the dressing table, and finally she came. Karim pressed her right into him, holding her, supporting her, as her body gave what she thought it never could—the delicious stabs of her first orgasm. She wanted to scream, but she held back. And then he was groaning and thrusting. And, yes, she could scream now—but instead she sobbed, a deep, sweet sob as he climaxed inside her.

Karim was dizzy.

He came often. But not like this—never once like this. He felt depleted—his thighs ached, the small of his back ached. It was as if he had dragged on hidden reserves to deliver all of his best. He couldn’t even take her to his bed for a moment, just stood as he lowered her down.

‘Thank you…’ she gasped, as weak and as dizzy as him. She stood till the world caught up, and then let him take her to his bed. She sat on the edge as he undressed her, garment by garment, kissing each newly exposed part of her body and then lying down on the bed beside her. He held her in the crook of his arm and felt her warm skin. ‘I loved it…’ Her voice was more normal now. ‘I never, ever, even in my wildest dreams…’

Her hand slipped down. He was about to tell her no, that it was too soon, too tender—but nature never ceased to amaze him. Her pleasure was so transparent, her wonder so catching, and he watched as he rose to greet her. And for Felicity—for her—he knew that he could do it all over again.