Ransomed for the Sheikh_A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel Read online

  “You crazy asshole!” she howled as she tried to spin her body around and kick at his knees and legs. But his grip on her hair was tight, down by the roots, and he was dragging her across the sand and then the cobblestone path with such velocity she had to grab his wrists and allow herself to get pulled along just so he wouldn’t rip her damned hair out!

  “Takes one to know one,” he muttered as he dragged her towards the pillars of the outer verandah of the main palace. He released her for a moment, and she turned and desperately tried to crawl away and get to her feet. But he was on her with the quickness of a snake striking, bringing his knee down on her back and pushing the air out of her lungs so fast she almost passed out. “And besides, craziness runs in our family. Especially on your side of the family. It is in your blood.” He leaned in, pushing his knee into her back as she cried out in pain. “Perhaps I shall let it out along with your blood. Send you to where your mother awaits the two of us.”

  Maddy spat sand from her mouth and blinked as she gasped for air. Her dead mother awaits the two of them? Why would he say that? The words sent shivers up her spine, and she blinked again as she saw flashes, snippets of memories, bits and pieces of images and events. Then suddenly Maddy could see her, a woman with dark hair and light skin, brown eyes that flashed with a strange light, full red lips that glowed bright as they twisted into a smile.

  “What do you know about my mother?” she gasped as she finally stopped struggling just so the Sheikh wouldn’t snap her in half with his power and weight.

  “More than I want to know,” he grunted, taking the point of his knee off her and then straddling her from behind so she was pinned down, face against the cobblestones. “Certainly more than I want to remember.”

  “Well, I don’t remember anything about her,” Maddy said, taking the deepest breath she could as her mind raced. She could tell that Imraan was on the edge, potentially unhinged, perhaps dangerous even though somehow she didn’t feel in true danger for her life. She wasn’t sure why, but somehow she still trusted that he wouldn’t hurt her . . . hurt her beyond repair, at least. “Help me remember, Imraan. Please.”

  She felt the Sheikh’s thighs tighten as he straddled her, and she swore she sensed movement between his legs. Was it simply his body reacting to being pressed up against hers? Or was it because Maddy had mentioned her mother?

  A sudden sickness rose up in Maddy’s throat as those images swirled in her head, fragments of color, snippets of sound, words and movement, colors and smells . . . the smell of sex, the color of flesh, the sound of . . .

  “Oh, God!” she shouted as she was taken back to that moment, a moment when a little girl peeked through the curtains and saw her mother and her brother in naked embrace, doing things she couldn’t understand—or didn’t want to understand! “Oh, God, Imraan! Tell me I’m crazy! Tell me it’s just imagination and not memory, that I’m really crazy and delusional! Please, Imraan! There’s no way. There’s no goddamn way! There’s no way you did that to my mother!”

  “She did it to me!” he roared from behind her, and in his voice she heard the desperation, the anguish, the unresolved guilt of a boy who’d been forced to become a man before he understood what it meant. “I was thirteen! What in Allah’s name was I to do?” He laughed as he gripped her hair from behind, his thighs squeezing her hips, his hardness prominent against her back. “You are just like her, are you not? A crazy whore who deserves to be treated like one. Who wants to be treated like one. All right then, daughter of Gaurina. You want to know about your mother? You want to know the kind of woman she was? You want to know what she liked? You will get what you are asking for. By God, you will get what you are asking for.”

  14

  Maddy almost passed out as she felt the fear invade her senses from the inside out. Had she pushed him too far? Had she pushed herself too far? Was he going to fuck her and then kill her? Were those flashes of memory real? Had her mother really seduced the thirteen-year old Imraan, turned him into this sex-crazed beast who was dragging her to his cave by her goddamn hair?

  She almost shouted for him to stop, that she was wrong, that she was sorry. She almost told him she understood that at thirteen he was still a child, that even though his body was ready, his mind was not. She almost said those things. Almost.

  She held her tongue because somehow she knew this was what he needed, and that she was perhaps the only woman in existence who could give it to him, who could survive it, who could . . . enjoy it?!

  Give him what he needs to heal, she thought as she allowed herself to be pulled into the shade of the verandah, the sun disappearing from view as she heard the grunts of the Sheikh, smelled the scent of his shame, sensed her own arousal riding in on waves of fear.

  Yes, give him what he needs to heal, she told herself again as she felt him rip her gown down the middle of her back, pull down her panties, slap her naked bottom so hard she gasped in shock, because he is the only one who will eventually give you what you need to heal.

  15

  “Tell me about my mother,” she whispered to him as he stared at her naked buttocks turned up towards him, the remnants of her white gown hanging along her sides like the wings of a broken angel. “Go on, Imraan. Tell me what she liked. What she wanted you to do to her.”

  He groaned as he felt his cock strain against his pants and underwear, and as his fever rose he unbuckled and unzipped, stripping naked and slapping her ass once again as he felt himself being taken back to a time when the arousal was so all-consuming there was no consideration for right or wrong. But he’d known it was wrong then, and he knew it was wrong now, and he groaned again as he looked down and saw his massive erection spring out in front of him, the head of his cock slapping against Maddy’s naked rump as she whispered to him in a voice that sent shivers of dark arousal through his hard body.

  What is she doing, he wondered as he ran his hands along her smooth back, rubbing her shoulders, kneading her buttocks, reaching around her and pressing her breasts until she rounded her back and pushed her ass against his cock. What is she doing to me? Is she playing me like her mother did? Seducing me like her mother did? Breaking me like her mother did?

  Or is she trying to put me back together?

  He could feel the sickness rise up in him, but along with it came that all-consuming arousal, a need so overwhelming he roared in anguish as he tried to fight it, to push away the memories that were flooding his mind, memories that Maddy had brought with her.

  “Please,” she whispered, turning her head sideways and glancing at him. The shadows cast by the pillars of the verandah made her face look dark, beautiful, different. “Please,” she said again to him, nodding. “I need it too, Imraan. It’s the only way to set us both free. Let go. Let loose. For both of us. Please.”

  He pushed his middle finger into her asshole as she spoke, and she gasped, her breath catching in her throat as the Sheikh felt the last bit of self-restraint leave him. He no longer gave a damn if she was playing him, if she was drawing him in so she’d have another chance to slit his throat. He didn’t give a damn anymore. He was too far gone.

  “Call me by her name,” she whispered as he pumped two fingers into her rear hole and rubbed the head of his cock against her slit from beneath, feeling their juices mix as her wetness flowed down along his glistening shaft. “I am her, Imraan. Live it out once more. Live it out, and then let it go.”

  The Sheikh felt tears roll down his face as his arousal grew. His mind was a squirming coil of images and emotions, his eyes unfocused and useless. He could hear himself panting like an animal, groaning like a beast, muttering like a madman. He could feel her move her buttocks against him as he fingered her anus and teased her vagina. He wanted to let go. He wanted to let go of it all, always and forever. Was this the way? Was she the way?

  The thoughts swirled and twisted as his vision clouded over again, and then he felt h
er hands reach between her thighs and grasp his balls, massaging them and slowly pulling him forward until his cockhead was firmly pressed against her entrance, opening her wide, her heat feeling like fire against his swollen tip.

  “Ya Allah,” he groaned as he curled his fingers inside her ass and began to push his thick shaft into her. “Ya Allah . . . Gaurina! My father will have us both killed if he finds out. My mother will die of shame if this becomes known.”

  “And we will deserve it,” she whispered back as she spread her thighs and pulled him by his heavy balls until he could resist no longer and rammed himself all the way into her so hard she screamed.

  “Then we had better make it worth it,” he growled as he pulled his fingers out of her asshole, grabbed her hair with one hand, her throat with the other, and began to pump with everything he had in him, all of it, twenty years worth.

  “Oh, God! Oh, fuck!” she howled, bracing herself against the floor, her fingers clawing against the thick Persian rug as the Sheikh’s thrusts slammed his hips against her cushion so hard he could see the bruises forming on her smooth buttocks.

  Still he pumped, roaring as he felt something inside him snap, like a lever had been released, a switch flipped. “Can you take it?” he muttered, his lips moving as if by some unknown force, the words spewing out of him like he’d said them before. “Am I too big for you, Gaurina? Too strong for you, my Sheikha? Am I ruining you . . . ruining you for my father? Stretching you so wide he will never be able to pleasure you again?”

  His own words shocked him, but they were coming from so deep inside he couldn’t stop them. He knew he was crying, and he smiled as the tears rolled down his cheeks and onto her shuddering buttocks as he pumped into her, drawing back and driving forward with such force he could feel his own ass and hamstrings flex to their limit. But she took everything he gave, screaming and howling as he pounded into her, coaxing him on when he wasn’t sure if she could handle it.

  And then finally, as she grasped his balls and led him into a climax so strong he almost passed out on top of her, she turned her tear-streaked face and looked at him and whispered: “Your father . . . your father already has something new to give him pleasure.”

  The Sheikh’s eyes suddenly snapped into full focus just as he felt himself explode into his stepsister’s valley, flooding her with his seed as he looked into her eyes. And in those eyes he saw the same madness he felt flowing through his climaxing body, saw the same darkness that had twisted her inside and out, the same desperate plea: That perhaps he was her only chance, her only hope, her only path out of hell and into . . . into whatever this was.

  And what is this, by God, he wondered as he flexed inside her, pushing out the last of his semen and then collapsing on top of her, pushing her face-down to the carpet with his weight. Is this a path out of the darkness or are we going deeper into it?

  He lay on top of her for several long moments, his mind still processing what she’d said to him. She’d said it before: daring him to take what his father had taken from her. But he hadn’t made the connection, hadn’t fully taken it in. But now he knew it was true. And somehow he knew that it had fueled Gaurina’s fire as well.

  He kissed her matted hair, smelled her sweet perspiration, and suddenly Imraan knew that something had changed inside him. He felt a strange lightness, an inner warmth, a feeling of intensity for this woman beneath him. Suddenly he wanted to protect her, to heal her, to bring her out of the psychological pit in which she’d been living since she was a child. But how? How in Allah’s name could he bring her out?

  And then he knew the answer. He’d have to do for her what she did for him. He’d have to descend into her darkness, just like she’d descended into his. He’d have to go down to those depths and bring her back with him. Give her what she needed, just like she gave him what he needed.

  But what does she need? How can I heal what my father broke in her? How can I get back what her own parents—our parents—took from her when she was too young to stop them, too innocent to protest, too small to fight back?

  Imraan looked into Maddy’s eyes as he thought, and the answer came in the way she looked back at him. That steady look, unwavering, firm, focused. Those same eyes that had seen him with her own mother through the curtains. Those same eyes that had seen the old Sheikh do what a man can never be forgiven for doing. Those same eyes that were looking at him now.

  Ya Allah, she does not need to act out the past, re-enact what broke her. I needed it because I had forgotten. But she never forgot in the same way I did. She never carried the same kind of guilt I did. So she will not need what I needed. She needs the opposite. She does not need to remember or re-live. She needs to forget . . . forget that her childhood was stolen, her innocence corrupted, her trust violated by the very people who were supposed to protect her with their lives, love her unconditionally, always and forever.

  That is what she needs, the Sheikh thought as he stroked her hair, kissed her lips, watched her blink in surprise at his sudden gentleness. I have spanked her, choked her, slapped her. I have pushed her face against the carpet, slid my fingers into her rear, fucked her with all the power and rage I had in me. Now I need to love her. I need to love her like she’s never been loved, hold her like she’s never been held, kiss her like she’s never been kissed. I need to be everything and everyone to her—everyone who betrayed her. I need to be her father, her brother, her lover, her best friend—everything she has never had, things she believes she does not deserve to have. But I don’t need to say those things. I just need to be them. Everything and everyone.

  He touched her cheek, her broken lips, caressed her neck as she sighed and looked up at him, that puzzled expression in her eyes becoming clearer, like the sun trying to break through the black clouds of a winter storm.

  The next move you make is a commitment, the Sheikh thought as he took a breath and glanced at her full lips, her wide eyes, her soft round cheeks. If she trusts you and you betray her, she will be beyond repair. So think carefully before you head down this path, Imraan, he told himself. Will you see this through? Do you trust yourself enough to head down this path? Because it will not last one night or one week or one month. It will last forever.

  “Please,” she whispered, looking up at him and nodding, and even though neither of them could be sure what she was asking for, the Sheikh nodded back and smiled down at her.

  Then he kissed her. For the first time, he truly kissed her.

  16

  She’d been fucked by men as far back as she could remember, taken every which way until it didn’t even matter, until it felt like nothing. She’d taken lovers when she felt the need over the years, using them and tossing them aside like trash when they couldn’t give her what she needed. But she’d never been kissed. Not like this. Not like it meant something. Not like it meant . . . everything.

  “What is wrong with us?” she whispered as she opened her mouth to receive his kiss. “Oh, God, what is wrong with us?”

  “A lot,” he said, breaking from the kiss and grinning down at her. “But we will fix it. One kiss at a time.”

  She smiled back, feeling a lightness enter her as the Sheikh’s lips pressed against hers, his warm tongue entering her mouth as he pressed his full weight down on her, his chest squishing her boobs, his hips spreading her legs, his hardness lining up perfectly against her slit.

  “You remember everything, do you not?” he whispered as he ran his palms down her naked sides, gripping her buttocks and pressing hard as she moved beneath him.

  She nodded, arching her back as he kissed her neck. “I didn’t for a long time. Not clearly, even though I knew it was there, buried, or behind a wall or something. But something happened over the past few days, ever since I met you, and now I remember him: Your father. I wish I didn’t, but yes, I remember. Every moment. Every fucking moment.”

  Maddy felt a sliver of electric
ity rip through her like fire as she fought the memories, and she dug her nails into his back as she tried to control the rage that so often felt uncontrollable. She felt the Sheikh tighten, and she knew she’d drawn blood with her nails. But he remained calm, still caressing her, still kissing her gently, still moving slowly over her, his body like a protective blanket over her damaged psyche.

  “Do you want to forget?” he whispered against her cheek even as she dragged her nails along his back, feeling his skin tear from the anger she was trying to control. “Do you want to forget it all, Maddy?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” she muttered, sliding her hand into his thick hair, moving her wide open hips against his growing hardness, feeling her wetness ooze as that dark arousal rose up in her, sending shivers down her back, past her naked buttocks, through her thighs, down to her toes. “I may not have had the memories until now, but I had the emotions. All that anger, all that hatred . . . it’s protected me all these years. If I let that go . . .”

  “Then what will protect you? Is that what scares you? You’ll lose the source of your strength? The fuel that allows you to do what you do?”

  She blinked, her eyes going wide, her grip on his hair loosening, her nails stopping their violent journey across his broad back. “Maybe. Yes. I don’t know. I just haven’t—”

  “I will protect you,” he whispered fiercely against her neck. “I will do what I should have done twenty years ago and protect the girl who couldn’t protect herself. It was my responsibility. I failed then. I will not fail now.”

  “But you didn’t know back then,” she said, frowning up at him. “You were a child too, Imraan. You didn’t know what was happening behind those closed doors, those drawn curtains.”