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I didn’t tell anyone about what happened that night.
The sheikh hadn’t forbidden me to do so. He didn’t have to. This was exactly like what happened the first night we meet. If I ever spoke a word, I’d end up ruining my mother’s marriage – the one thing in her life that was purely beautiful and happy.
And I just couldn’t do that to her.
After school the next day, a soldier came to me, saying the sheikh was requesting for my presence in his study.
“Could you tell him I’m not feeling well?” Not waiting for the soldier’s answer, I smiled wanly at him before closing the door on his face.
I threw myself on my bed, still in my uniform. It was all a lie of course, but I just knew I wasn’t ready to face him yet.
Memories of our kiss flooded my mind. I squeezed my eyes shut, but they persisted to haunt even the darkness behind my lids, taunting me of my weakness.
That kiss shouldn’t have happened, but it had, and I hadn’t done anything to stop it. Instead, I had returned the kiss, surrendered myself to the kiss and if the sheikh hadn’t put a stop to it, I would have let the kiss go on...forever.
For the rest of the day, I locked myself inside the room, even going as far as skipping dinner because I still wasn’t ready to face him.
Near midnight, someone knocked on my door, waking me up. “Who is it?” I called out. I was sleepy and confused, unable to understand why the soldier outside my door didn’t just tell me who it was.
“May I speak with you?”
It was the sheikh.
When I didn’t answer, the sheikh said quietly, “I do not want this between us, Lady Ella. Let me speak with you. Please.”
The raw sincerity in his voice drew me in, and before I knew what I was doing, I was already unlocking the door and letting him in. “Your Highness,” I mumbled, sinking into a curtsy. I avoided his gaze the entire time.
I heard the sheikh close the door and lock it. The latter stunned me, made me wary all of a sudden. I looked up, and the mocking gleam in the sheikh's blue eyes made me gasp.
He had tricked me again!
I tried to run away, but he was too fast. Before I knew it, he had twisted us around, my back slamming against the door while he held me caged between his arms.
I was trapped.
We stared at each other for a moment, both of us breathing hard. The sheikh was dressed in dark night robes, the deep V showing a sliver of his bronze chest, while I was in a slip of silk, one that revealed more than it hid.
The sheikh started to bend his head.
I began to struggle. “No—-” I started to scream, but the sound was swallowed into his kiss.
The sheikh kissed me long and hard, my desperate struggles no match for his strength. He kissed me deeply and passionately, kissed me until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but moan and surrender into his touch.
No longer able to resist what my body wanted, I wrapped my arms wrapped around his neck. Hesitantly, I kissed him back, and at the first touch of my tongue with his, the sheikh shuddered.
His control seemed to break, the kiss becoming wild, the sheikh sucking on my tongue. It was another first, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I wanted him to suck my tongue forever.
His mouth moved down, the sheikh kissing my neck, sucking hungrily on the pulse. His mouth moved down once more, his fingers clearing the way as he pulled the neckline of my blouse down. When tore my bra away and my breasts popped out, I gasped in shock at finding myself half-naked all of a sudden. I hastily tried to cover myself but the sheikh quickly caught my wrists and pinned them over my head.
“Keep still,” the sheikh snarled.
And I did, because he had never used such a tone with me.
I trembled as the sheikh's gaze moved down. “Such beautiful breasts,” he murmured.
I shook my head in mortification. “It’s too big.” The words came out of nowhere, but my worry was real. My shame was real. They were too big. I believed that because my breasts tended to make men stare at me the wrong way.
“Too big?” the sheikh mocked. “For an ignorant man perhaps but not for me.” And he seemed to want to prove it as he cupped one large breast with his equally large and strong hand. My breast filled his hand nicely, and the sight was almost hypnotic.
A whimper escaped me when the sheikh started kneading my breast. It was the most amazing sensation, the most addictive feeling. Then he started tweaking my nipple, and I lost it. I started rocking against his body.
“Please, please, please.” I couldn’t stop begging.
I wanted more of his touch and I didn’t want it to stop.
As if hearing my thoughts, the sheikh asked, “You want me to stop?”
I shook my head wildly.
The sheikh released me.
“Don’t refuse me again.” The sheikh slammed the door shut behind me as he left, leaving me shaken and confused.
The next day, I came down for breakfast, wondering if I’d see him, scared if I would.
But he wasn’t there.
“The sheikh left last night, milady.” Seeing my stricken look, the cook clucked her tongue. “You two had a fight again?”
“S-something like that,” I mumbled. A veritable feast laid waiting before me but I had no appetite, the knowledge that the sheikh was gone making me feel listless.
“It will be fine, he’ll come back.” The cook patted my hand comfortingly. “All my life I have worked here, watched the sheikh grow from a wee babe. Never had I seen him so worried when you didn’t come to join him for dinner.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “The sheikh was...worried?”
“That he was, child. He even had me send you a tray but told me I shouldn’t let you know about it.” The cook winked.
“I see.” I was dumbfounded by her revelations.
“The sheikh does not find it easy to trust anyone, milady. He doesn’t find it easy to show his emotions, but I tell you, milady. Yesterday, it was very obvious he missed your company—-”
“But we don’t even speak when we eat together,” I protested. “At all!”
“Ah, you are indeed young, milady.” The cook smiled. “You can enjoy a person’s company even when not a single word has been spoken, and that’s how it was with you and the sheikh. He always dines alone, milady. Even when his family is all here, he prefers his own company, taking his meals in his suite. But when you came...”
When I came, there was not a day I hadn’t my meals with him, whenever the sheikh was in residence. All along, I had thought that was because it was tradition...but now I knew it wasn’t.
Could it be true? Did he really enjoy my company that much?
Something spread inside me, something warm, beautiful, and forbidden.
I mustn’t read anything into it, I told myself. I mustn’t. Even if he did enjoy my company, that was it. It didn’t change a thing. He was still the one I couldn't have. Nothing would – could – happen between us, and I had to remember that.