Carol Marinelli - Bound To The Sheikh Read online

  After the assistant had left, Emily put her new scarlet knickers on and even her bottom was blushing.

  But then she started to laugh.

  She was on the other side of the galley today and yes, Emily decided, she would enjoy every moment of this rare day, whatever surprises it brought.

  As she looked through the clothes Emily was glad that Ashim had left her to do this on her own.

  It had been fun shopping with Cathy but the lilac dress, though very nice, Emily had chosen more because she could sense her friend was getting bored than because she loved it.

  Emily dressed well for work but at home it was generally yoga pants and whatever t-shirt she grabbed first. She’d only really made an effort if they had gone out for one of Stephen’s medical appointments but that effort had been jeans and a smarter top.

  Emily tried on a dark red shift dress which she liked but her bust was too big and her legs were too pale. Then she put on an amazing top in burnt orange, which she almost loved but on her it just looked wrong.

  She didn’t know what suited her and, so after a few attempts and getting it wrong, she decided to ask the Adilene’s advice.

  “I know.” Adilene smiled when she saw how burnt orange worked on Emily. “Try this.”

  It was a silk, linen fabric in deep russet and was a touch shorter than Emily was used to wearing. It was also cut incredibly low at the back Emily realised once she had tried it on.

  Yes, it was seriously gorgeous but Emily shook her head.

  “I can’t go without a bra…” That she was without one now was only because her lilac dress was a halter neck and gave her a little support.

  “Wait…” Adilene said and disappeared only to come back a few moments later with a very small bikini in gold. “You would wear this underneath and it will take you from beach to dinner and beyond.”

  It worked.

  And with a pair of gorgeous espadrilles she tried on, her legs were longer.

  Adilene’s golden glove treatment didn’t finish there.

  Her hair was smoothed into a swishy, high ponytail and her cheeks were bronzed and her nails buffed.

  She felt now, not like a prostitute being groomed for him. She felt pampered and spoiled but, most of all, as she looked in the mirror, she felt transformed.

  But transformed back into herself.

  “You need a bag.” Adilene was shamelessly going for her commission and she suggested a huge, chunky bag in the softest leather.

  Oh, and she needed sunglasses, too.

  “I’ve been told not to accept no.” Adilene smiled.

  And this time, Emily didn’t protest.

  She left the boutique and looking down the street and she saw Ashim, glasses off, watching the world go by and drinking coffee, unfazed by the time she had taken.

  Emily went up behind him and put her hands over his eyes. “Guess who.”

  “Show me.”

  “Oh, no,” Emily said. She would tease him as he had her last night but Ashim wasn’t going to wait, he removed her hands from his eyes and pulled her into his lap.

  “You look amazing,” Ashim said.

  She had looked amazing last night but it wasn’t the sophisticated clothes that did it. There was a lighter air to her and she was a different woman to the woman he had met last night, now Emily was confident and assuredly smiling, and he wanted to see more of the woman that was being revealed to him.

  “Come on.” Ashim said, his fingers toying with the strap of her bikini. “What goes on must come off.”

  They headed back to the beach and were led to two striped sun loungers and Ashim took off his jeans and shirt and, used to this, he was already wearing swimwear.

  Emily removed her dress and she refused to let the beach goers, or even Ashim, know just how awkward this felt for her. She took off her dress and then her bikini top and then she lay down with her cheeks on fire but she had finally done it.

  And, after a few moments lying there, that self-conscious feeling slipped away and then she looked over to Ashim and they shared a smile.

  “You are a shy girl.”

  “Ha!”

  “I used to come here when I first started flying,” Emily admitted. “Most of crew would spend their down time on the beach.”

  “Not you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “But not topless?”

  “I was serious about someone,” Emily said as much as she was prepared to on the subject. “He wouldn’t have liked it.”

  “I’ll oil you.” Ashim said. “Turn over.”

  His hands were slow and measured and he didn’t just oil her, he smoothed out some knots of tension in her shoulders and then made them tense again when he oiled her thighs though they tensed in a very nice way.

  “Turn over,” he said again and she closed her eyes to the bliss as with equal care he oiled her front.

  “You’re done,” he said and gave a small slap to her thigh. Emily opened her eyes to his amber ones and Emily smiled.

  “I’ll oil you now,” Emily said.

  “I don’t need oil.”

  “I wasn’t offering.”

  He lay on his stomach and she drizzled the warm oil low on his back and then slowly over his shoulders and then, as he awaited her touch, instead she squeezed oil on her hands and slowly rubbed it in them.

  “Emily.”

  She made him wait even when she touched him. Light, light strokes on his shoulders and he groaned at the tease.

  “Fuck,” Ashim said. “I wish we were on the yacht.”

  “I don’t,” Emily said, her strokes getting firmer over his muscular back feeling the delicious tension in him and she leant forward a little, just so her breast could dust his back, and it was purely for her, and she lowered her head to his ear.

  “I like being here.”

  “Because?”

  “Because,” Emily said in response. “There’s not a thing you can do.”

  “Don’t dare me,” Ashim said with a husky edge to his voice.

  “Don’t worry.” She gave him a light tap on taut buttocks. “What goes up must come down.”

  She took to her sunbed and just lay back on her lounger and closed her eyes loving the feel of the sun on her body and just lying quietly next to him.

  “Better?” Emily said when quite a while later he turned onto his back.

  “You’re a bitch.” Ashim smiled.

  “Oh, I can be.”

  He called for drinks and they sat up and drank icy cocktails.

  There was a family in the shallows, a child aged about five was helping his little brother to build a sandcastle and it took a moment for Emily to realize that the mother was holding a very tiny baby.

  “Won’t the baby burn?” Emily frowned.

  “I don’t know.” Ashim heard the concern in her voice. “The mother must know what she is doing if they are all hers.”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you….” he hesitated, there were some things he did not want to know. He had felt cross when he had found out Ravel had three.

  He didn’t know how he’d feel if Emily had children but cross would not be the word.

  “Do you see yourself having children?” he asked the question rather more vaguely.

  “God no,” Emily said and gave Ashim her stock standard answer, the one she had used for so many years. “I love my career too much, that’s my baby.”

  And then she put down her drink and looked away from the little family and lay down and looked up to the sky and she didn’t even know if that was a true answer.

  If Stephen hadn’t had his accident, would she have changed her mind and had a baby by now?

  His parents had called her selfish in the midst of a dark, angry row borne of exhaustion and angst as they prepared to farewell their only child.

  “I just don’t want a baby,” Emily had snapped, her voice adamant, her decision final.

  What she hadn’t said, was that she felt as if she already had
a child. A child that could never grow up and there simply wasn’t enough left of her to go around.

  Ashim could see she was pensive and he came and sat on the sun lounger and took her hand.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I am.” She looked up and Emily had never expected him to be so kind.

  His mouth came down and she had never known a kiss so tender.

  Her hand moved to the back of head and she felt the silk of his hair as he kissed her sad better.

  No, she could never forget him.

  Ashim was starting to heal her heart.

  Chapter Nine

  They swam, they kissed in the ocean, and then showered on the beach and then dressed as the sun lowered on another day.

  Emily a little pink, Ashim a bit more brown, they wandered hand in hand and explored the streets. Her hair was damp and in a low ponytail now and sometimes there was just no need for makeup.

  Emily wore happiness very well.

  She just hadn’t been able to try it on for size for a very long time.

  It was crowded, St. Tropez always was, but finally they found a restaurant tucked away and it was seriously beautiful.

  The air was fragrant and cool as they stepped in and the tables were dressed in white with wild poppies as their centerpiece.

  Ashim ordered champagne and it was delicious and icy and he moved their chairs closer and picked a poppy and placed it in her hair.

  His jeans were against her thigh and it was hard to resist turning her lips just to taste him.

  “We could eat on the yacht,” Emily breathed.

  “Oh, no,” he shook his head. “It’s your turn to suffer now. Eat,” Ashim said as the entrée was served.

  He had ordered socca—a thin pancake that was smothered in cracked black pepper with sides of ripe olives, foie gras, and chèvre cheese and it tasted like perfection with the champagne.

  “This is divine,” Emily said when plump roasted prawns tossed in truffle oil were served.

  It was a simple yet exquisite meal. Ashim declined dessert; Emily, though, didn’t and he watched her licking her lips as she perused the menu.

  “They all look divine.”

  The waiter strongly suggested she chose their vanilla crème brûlée for dessert.

  It was the best she had ever tasted.

  The night was perfect, or rather it would be would be, except for the fact that their questions, their conversation was at times carefully crafted so as not to again cross the lines when both wanted to leap over them.

  He wanted her in his bed for more than one more night, and she wanted back in his, wherever that bed might be.

  “Switzerland for you tomorrow,” Ashim checked and she nodded. “What time do you fly?”

  “At two but I need to shop and plan a menu. Pri—” she stopped. Always, Emily was discreet about her clients; she just wanted to share more with him. To tell him about Princess Alice and that she might make for her the meal they had just shared.

  And she wanted to tell him how she loved shopping for food and to cook.

  Silly things, perhaps, but they were things that she loved to do when she wasn’t being this playboy’s latest squeeze.

  And these were the very things that Ashim was starting to want to know.

  With women he had always lived on a need to know basis and he had never needed to know much.

  Until now.

  They were nearing a beach club and Ashim stopped walking and turned her to face him.

  “What would happen if you called work and said you couldn’t make it tomorrow? Come with me to Monte Carlo…”

  “Julia wouldn’t like it.” She stopped, not prepared to go there even in her imagination.

  It was tempting to ring in sick and head off to Monte Carlo with him, oh, of course it was.

  She was actually rather glad that her phone was flat because otherwise, Emily thought, she might just do it.

  Or would she?

  Emily loved her work; it had been her savoir and was terribly important to her. Yes, she could call in sick but for what? Another night with him, a few more nights perhaps?

  No, she valued her work too much.

  “I have to go to Switzerland; I’ve got some time off after that.” Emily said and she looked at him and her eyes told him she would not be his plaything. As well as that, she guessed, and rightly she was sure, it would be easy for him to fly her back from Switzerland, or even offer to join her there.

  He didn’t.

  “I love my career, Ashim. I’ve only been with them for nine months and.” She shook her head. “As you said—you don’t need my résumé.”

  And so, instead of making plans for tomorrow, they made the best of what was left of the day and headed into the beach bar.

  The music was pulsing; she could feel it in her stomach that was jumping with nerves at what she had just said no to.

  They drank and they danced, pressed together by the crowd. It was a wild, decadent place. Partygoers were sprayed with champagne on regular occasion as they danced so that hot bodies were sticky and dresses and shirts clung.

  It was hot and sensual and it was the wildest she had ever been and she danced, arms in air, his arm pulling her into his hips and she only peeled herself away because she had to go to the bathroom.

  “Don’t,” Ashim said to her ear. “Hold it…”

  Oh, she wanted that deep come a full bladder would give but she wanted to dance, too, and so Emily smiled and tore herself away.

  She looked in the mirror as she washed her hands and saw how her wet dress clung to her body and her nipples were peaked from the long, slow turn on. She saw the glitter in her eyes and her flushed cheeks and tousled hair.

  She looked younger than her years but now the inside matched her face.

  Emily felt younger, happier, and yet more confident and bolder in her skin.

  She wasn’t faking it now.

  She had made it.

  Chapter Ten

  They had danced till just before dawn and now they were back on his yacht.

  It had been the most amazing day and night in her life.

  Sticky from champagne she had dropped her new bag on the bedroom floor and her new clothes, too, and Ashim had done the same.

  They had showered together and he had washed her slowly and intimately, making her come with long, dark fingers and then Ashim had gone to the bedroom as Emily combed through her hair.

  It was morning.

  They could pretend that it wasn’t, but there had been little need to flick on the lights when they had come in.

  Somehow she had to do this without crying, without changing this into something it was never designed to be.

  Monte Carlo still tempted but it wasn’t just Julia’s reaction that had Emily holding back.

  What would Ashim say if she told him the truth? That he was the second man she had had sex with and the first in nine years.

  No!

  And neither did she want to tell him that she was widowed, because she didn’t want his sympathy and neither did she want well-meaning words that hurt.

  “You must miss him…”

  She had missed Stephen long before he had died, her mourning had started many years ago, and the guiltiest truth of all was that Emily was quite sure that she had stayed out of duty.

  It made her ill to think that she hadn’t loved her husband and it was a secret she would take to her grave.

  She and Ashim were about desires and fantasizes met. It was lust, it was passion, it was a holiday romance and nothing more than that.

  Only she wasn’t quite sure that she believed her own thoughts.

  Emily stepped out of the bathroom, the sky was a pinky orange and the light breeze must have picked up because she walked a little unsteadily as the ocean moved beneath them.

  Or maybe she just didn’t want to say goodbye.

  “Come here,” Ashim said and even that hurt because he sensed the sad air and was kind and took her into his a
rms.

  Ashim lay there, feeling the blink of her eyelashes on his chest and he could feel that she was pensive.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Emily gave a little shrug.

  “You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”

  “No.”

  “How about…” He hesitated.

  Emily had told him she had a few days off after today and he thought about flying her back Switzerland. Then he felt her warm in his arms and if she did say yes, then what the hell did he say when they approached Alzaquan.

  To end it there would surely be cruel towards her.

  “How about I say thank you?” Ashim said instead. “Thank you for changing your mind. Thank you for turning around that night and walking towards me.”

  “I’m so glad that I did.” She was more thankful that she had than he could ever know.

  And so this was goodbye.

  Emily lifted her face and their mouth met and he pulled her up higher, yet Emily went higher still.

  She kneeled and then lowered her face to his and kissed him in a way she should not.

  It was the kiss of her heart, tasting him, opening his lips with her tongue and caressing his slowly as her hands roamed his chest, feeling him just one last time. Then her lips went down and she explored flat nipples with her mouth and fingers and breathed on them and kissed them deep. Then her mouth moved ever down, exploring his flat stomach, tonguing him there as her hand moved down to his cock.

  Ashim lay there and he had never been made love to.

  He fucked.

  Now though, he felt the trail of her damp hair and the soft wet of her tongue on his stomach and she delivered deep, sensual kisses as her mouth inched closer to where she held his thick base.

  As he felt loose lips close around his head and deliver firm tongue, his groan was long and low, the feeling one that almost brought up his knees. His hand did not move to push her head down further as was his usual preference, his hips did not thrust, he just lay there and grew harder to her tongue, stroking her breasts, just there in the moment and so was she.

  One arm lay over his head and his other hand moved from her breasts and to her buttocks. Ashim then found out how delicious a desirous moan could be when it came from the mouth that was working his cock.