Sheikh's Scandalous Mistress (7 page)

“Well, my reporter, this is your estate for the weekend.”

She chuckled and slid out of the seat. He loved watching her eyes as she gaped up at the massive shadow of his home. “God, if your casino is all about the forty thieves, then I feel like I’m in a whole new world with you.”

“Then come,” he said.

She winked at him. “Oh, again we’re back to threats and promises.”

“Always, my reporter. Always.”

***

She was sitting on his lap, and he wasn’t restraining his interest in her in the slightest. His erection was rigid against the delectable curves of her ass, and her long, honey-gold hair tickled his nose as she reclined against him.

“You’re quiet. That seems rare for you.”

“You’re getting to know me so well already,” she said.

They were relaxing under the night stars in the rose garden that was his mother’s pride and joy. The current sheikha of Abu Dhabi was blessed with a green thumb, and she would probably still win the surfeit of horticultural awards she usually swept during the competition season. The prize of her collection was the bright blue hybrids she’d worked decades to cultivate. They were near one of those bushes now, and he’d even carefully plucked one to thread behind Amanda’s ear.

It made her look as exotic as she was to this landscape.

“Still, you seem distracted. I promise I’ll take you up to my bedroom right away and have my way with you. I didn’t want you to think all I wanted was to have you for your body.”

Amanda gave a rueful chuckle. “You’d be the first.”

He practically growled as he nibbled the skin on her neck. “Then all those other men were fools.”

“I love the way you say that,” she said, but her voice grew quiet, and he wasn’t sure she quite believed him.

“And yet, you seem like there’s something huge weighing you down. Would you like to talk about it?”

“Well, I feel like I’ve been hijacked a bit. I’m never like this, but all this stress has been building on me for over six months and it’s only gotten worse since I got sent here.”

“You make it sound as if Abu Dhabi is Siberia. As if coming to Ali Babba’s and to me was a punishment.”

“Maybe it was. I angered a very powerful man in my country.”

“May I ask who?”

She sighed and shook her head. “Senator Darryl Jackson. Have you heard of him?”

He frowned and thought over what he knew of American politics. He kept up with what he could, and he mainly focused on the president or on the movers and shakers of Wall Street, people he needed to go to in order to get financing for his casino or other projects. The senator’s name didn’t ring any bells.

“Sorry, I don’t know him.”

“He’s been in power a long time, and no one knows it yet, but I’ve been working for six months to link him to illegal arms dealing and funding to some extremely powerful Central American drug cartels. His people didn’t like that, and there were huge suits threatened at the
Washington Sentinel
. The compromise was either I get exiled to the fluffy beat or I get fired. This was the best I could do.”

He nodded again and kissed her throat, letting his tongue trail over the pulse point near her clavicle. “That assuredly explains the chip on your shoulder and the fierce tongue.”

“I bet you’d like my fierce tongue.”

“That I know I would,” he said. “I…do you need my help? Maybe I can put some of my own intelligence detail on helping find more concrete evidence to nail Jackson to the wall.”

She quirked her head back at him, angling her body so that she could see him fully. “I can’t do that. This is my fight, the man I’ve spent time focusing on. I’ll get him, and I’ll get him with even more research and tapping of my sources than before. You know,” she huffed, “after I get back from Japan or South Africa or Singapore, wherever else there’s a resort opening or a celebrity wedding. I’m supposed to be on my tour of the quote-unquote glamorous life until at least Christmas.”

“When there’s a punishment, then it really does stick, doesn’t it?”

“My editor did stick up for me. I should be fired and blacklisted. I have no doubt that when unbridled, Senator Jackson has all that power. He may have more,” she added, her eyes clouding with dark thoughts, their blue somehow dampened even as her voice grew low and thoughtful.

He grabbed her chin and forced her to look him directly in the eyes. “Are you in physical danger?”

“I can’t let that bother me.”

“That’s not what I asked,” he said, feeling fear flare through his gut.

He’d known his share of power-hungry dignitaries and rulers among the allies of Abu Dhabi. There were definitely men among them that he knew would stop at nothing to eliminate threats. Somehow, he was getting the feeling that his reporter was underplaying the danger she was in, that this Jackson was not a man who would take resistance or exposes lightly.

If at all.

“He’s not tried anything since I got here. That’s all I know. I think he was happy to basically bury my career, but you know that old saying about phoenixes rising from the ashes,” she said, a hungry glint now back in her eyes. That worried him as well. It was one thing to be brave but quite another to be downright foolhardy. “I just am in journalistic hell.”

“But there are worthy stories here. You can tell people about the gallery, about the work we’re doing to help with the hidden people of Abu Dhabi. There are stories everywhere, things you can see even before you return to DC, things that you dismiss from the surface. Everywhere has stories, even the vapid and fashionable.”

“I think I’m starting to realize that—that there’s so much more beneath the surface,” she said, her voice a throaty purr, like a siren in some 40s film. “I wouldn’t have seen you.”

“Then that would have been a tragedy,” Amir replied, pushing the worry about his brave reporter away for a bit longer. He’d put some of his best men on investigating the senator, regardless of what she wanted. After all, she was currently
his
and no one hurt those he cared about. But for now, he had other plans. Nefarious plans in his own way. “But I do think you need to find that there are stories everywhere. I think there are, and what I want to know is what’s underneath that dress of yours, reporter.”

***

The bath smelled heavenly; it was scented with rose petals, jasmine, and sumptuous oils. The bubbles were brimming and steam was rising from it, although Amanda wasn’t even sure that
bath
was the right word. The tub before them was massive, at least eight-by-eight feet. It could have been a small pool, and quite the sight to behold with intricate, brightly colored tiles, set in a cavalcade of shapes from octagons to diamonds.

Amir stood before her on the other side of the bath. Slipping off his robes, he let the fabric fall to his feet and stepped away from it. Amanda watched all of this, licking her lips with anticipation and interest. She’d been right in her estimation of his body—his shoulders were broad, his skin so tawny and gleaming, and the ridges of his eight pack so apparent that she could have done laundry on them. His hips narrowed and all of his rippling, taut muscles led to a thatch of black hair over his groin. Already springing from it was his manhood, rigid and ready for her.

Licking her lips again, she divested herself of her own dress and started into the bath, relishing the heat of the water as it kissed her skin. Amanda watched as he entered the bath as well, his erection visible even through the bubbling water. It had been too long since the lap dance and far too long since yesterday, since he’d made her come and shattered her.

She needed him again.

Needed to feel more than just his fingers in her channel.

Their bodies met in a collision of passion and exhilaration. Amanda pressed herself up against his body, feeling the girth of his manhood against her belly. Amir smelled not only of the perfume of the bathtub, but also of sandalwood and his own musky scent, something that was pure male and called to her most atavistic self. It was a good thing they were already in the bubbling liquid because she was wet already.

So very prepared for him.

“I want to taste you,” he said, purring in her ear.

She wanted to taste him, as well, and she was glad for the playful way physics behaved in water, the positions they could play with as they floated. Together, even as they pawed at each other, they moved their way to the ledge of the tub, a shelf for sitting and laying down on its edge. But now she had a very good idea what
else
it could offer. Amir laid down first, and she wanted to climb him like a jungle gym to feel those ropey muscles in her hands.

“I want you to straddle me, Amanda. I’ve been dying to taste you since last night, since you came on my hand and coated me with your ambrosia.”

It surprised her that she had no shame left, not when she could gaze upon Amir’s naked body with urgency. Sliding up on his skin, almost in a trance, Amanda shimmied backward over him until she positioned herself—her womanhood—over his waiting mouth. He suckled at her rosebud, teasing it first with delicate pressure from his teeth before he drew the sensitive nub as deeply between his lips as he could.

Rolling her eyes back in her head, she gave herself over to the sensation, gave in to the feeling of heat swirling throughout her body, starting from her innermost channel. It was like a trickle of lava coursing through her veins. But she had to be fair. Angling herself as best she could, she lowered her mouth to his manhood, taking his thick member between her lips. At first, it was so difficult to concentrate as his tongue continued its assault on her pulsing pearl. Amir laved at it with a skill she couldn’t have possibly imagined, and it was a very good thing they were both laying down, because she felt her knees give out from under her and her leg muscles turn to nothing under high onslaught.

Still, she was always a big believer in fairness, and she wanted to pay her part. Twirling her tongue around the tip of his hardness, she took in the taste of him, the raw masculinity of him. Then she went to work, doing her best to suck and lave at his member. Even as she twisted her tongue creatively over his shaft, Amir continued to flick his tongue at a pace that couldn’t be human against her rosebud.

It was no longer just a trickle of lava in her veins. Now it was a rushing current, an atomic heat surging through her very being. Then his tongue plunged deep inside of her and she screamed, feeling the volcano erupt even as she shivered under his talented tongue. But she couldn’t break her focus, and even as her body trembled with her orgasm, she worked harder, playing with his member until he came for her as well, his seed spilling out into her mouth.

When it was done, both of them rolled into the water and cleaned themselves, breathing as if they’d run a marathon. She glided through the water for a bit, taking a lap in the pool-sized tub before she rejoined him. A million thoughts were echoing through her head, and not one of them was about Senator Jackson. She had so many other things in her mind: the ecstasy still flowing through her limbs, the adoration she felt for Amir and his honesty, the hidden depths and kindness of the sheikh she’d not anticipated before, and the unfamiliar sensation of hope bubbling through her chest and to the rest of her limbs.

Part of her wished she didn’t have to leave for wherever Harris sent her next. And yet, another voice was speaking in her ear, reminding her that she never did what she wanted, what made her happy. She worked for what she thought would make her late mother proud. It had been so long since she felt this good. Dear God, had she ever felt this good?

Couldn’t she be irresponsible a bit longer?

Did it even matter anymore?

She finished her lap and came to rest again on top of her sheikh, grinning a bit at the way his length teased against her rear. He was already semi-hard again, and she loved how eager he was for her. She’d never had a man in her life be that eager, or been looked at by any lover like she was a steak he was waiting to devour.

“You look like the cat who ate the canary. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking,” she said, “that maybe I can just call my editor and tell him I quit. I want time to finish my investigation on my own time, and I’ve found something worth staying for a lot longer in Abu Dhabi. I could stay a few more weeks, at least, before I work back home in DC to take Jackson down.”

Amir’s face went stony, and Amanda’s heart fell even as her mouth went as dry as the Sahara.

Did I over-presume? God, I didn’t come off like
Fatal Attraction
, did I?

Amir held that expression for exactly five seconds before breaking out into a wide grin and kissing her, his mouth plundering her own like a miner seeking the deepest hidden treasures. “I think I’d like that very much, Miss Sinclair.”

Soon, they were swept up in the passion of the bath again, and soon after, of all that they could do with the expanse of a king bed at their mercy.

He was humming to himself. It occurred to Amir that it was cheesy as hell to be doing so, but he couldn’t help it. He’d had an amazing night last night with Amanda, trying everything they could think of, and he was glad for her eager attitude. Oddly, for the first time in a long time, he was even thrilled by the prospect of her perhaps taking a long vacation before she returned to DC to continue her investigation of Senator Jackson. Usually, he’d avoid entanglements, but there was something in Amanda that called to him, and he couldn’t wait to have her with him at the palace for even more sessions to enjoy together.

It was then that his mother swept in.

Part of him wanted to roll his eyes. She was smiling at him and positively buzzing around the room. With effort, he suppressed the urge to roll his eyes—the rest of him knew that it was a sign of disrespect to the current sheikh and inappropriate for a son to behave. Still, she’d been hinting so gleefully about his attraction to Amanda the other day, and now she was venturing into his office in order to speak with him. As if that didn’t seem highly suspicious at all.