Her Seductive Enemy, page 8
Too bad for her, such words had no impact on him. He only cared about her truest desires, and the way her breasts rapidly rose and fell under her thin robe told him that Anisah wanted the same thing he wanted.
Sex.
Lots of it.
And one day my sweet, I will make you admit this myself.
But for now he had to bide his time, and so he simply ignored her questions, remarking instead, “You do not seem happy to see me.”
The sheikh’s words reminded Anisah of another person who’d feel the exact opposite, and her face whitened. She immediately twisted her head to look around while demanding, “Where’s Minnie?” The other woman was obsessed with royalty, and heaven knew what crazy ideas Minnie would entertain if she saw Anisah sharing a booth with the sheikh.
“Relax, my sweet. I had one of my bodyguards ensure she took a well-deserved break while you and I...talk.” Tarif cocked his head to the side. “You do not have a problem with this, I assume?”
Her teeth gnashed. Both of them knew she would rather not have anyone see them together, but with Minnie away, it also meant they were alone – and she did not like that. She tended to do foolish things when she was alone with the sheikh, and oh dear heavens, just having him so near now –
It was making her want to do more foolish things, and that was not good at all.
“Why are you doing this, sheikh?”
“I already told you why.”
Another memory drifted to her. No more games, anisdi. I want us to try again. Such beautiful words, but she’d be an idiot if she let mere words sweep her away, and so Anisah slowly shook her head. “It’s impossible.”
“You are meant to be my woman—-”
“No.” She shook her head again, vigorously this time. “I am not and I won’t ever be.”
But her protests only had the sheikh regard her in calm contemplation. “You truly believe this?” His question dared her to lie to him outright – something he knew her honor would cause her to struggle over – and when he saw Anisah bite her lip, Tarif knew he had succeeded in making his point.
Their gazes met.
Hers was pleading. Can’t you just leave me alone and find someone else?
His was unyielding. You are the only one I want.
Anisah was torn. A part of her was exasperated and even despairing at the sheikh’s infernal stubbornness, but then there was the other part of her – her most foolish and shameful side, actually - that actually delighted in the sheikh’s desire to possess her.
“This can’t end well,” she said finally. “You know it can’t, sheikh. So can’t we just be smart about this and just get on with each other’s lives? Separately?” She took a deep breath. “Please?”
But the sheikh only had one word to say. “No.”
Curse him. Anisah’s look of reluctant entreaty readily turned into one of frustration. “You can have any woman in the world—-”
“But I only want you.” His words only had Anisah throwing him an unimpressed look. Bullshit, it snarled at him, and Tarif inclined his head with a slight smile, acknowledging her understandable unwillingness to believe him. “I know my past makes such words appear patently false, but it is not. You are the only one I want—-”
“That’s exactly what makes this hard to believe, Your Highness. I’m nothing special—-”
“On the contrary, I’d say you were one of a kind, my sweet.”
“One of a kind?” Her tone was openly incredulous now. “In what way?”
Wickedness flashed in the sheikh’s dark gaze. “Your pussy for one.”
She choked.
“I’ve developed quite an obsession with it.”
Anisah couldn’t help gaping and blushing at the same time. “I cannot believe you are saying such things—-”
“The thought of making your pussy mine has me awake for nights—-”
“Sheikh, please!” Feeling like she was about to burst into flames at the sheikh’s words, Anisah clumsily made a grab for her dessert and fed herself a huge spoonful in an effort to cool her body down.
A smile of pure male satisfaction formed on the sheikh’s lips at Anisah’s flushed appearance, and he purred, “I am only speaking the truth—-”
“You only think you’re speaking the truth, Your Highness.” She shoved another spoonful inside her mouth, but it did nothing to reduce the heat that was insidiously invading every inch of her body and making her tingle from head to toe. “My...” She could think of the word easily enough – pussy, pussy, pussy – but thinking it was quite different from voicing it out loud, and so she said instead, “My kitty is no different from the others.”
Kitty? The sheikh almost choked, but he managed to drawl in a fairly steady voice, “While I always respect your opinion, I also believe when it comes to the matter of your kitty—-” He grinned, and she turned red. “It’s something my cock is in a better position to decide on. Do you not think so?”
Anisah could only glower at the sheikh. Thinking was exactly what she couldn’t do, and it was so the moment the sheikh spoke of a certain part of his anatomy. Oh dear heavens, what that long, thick, hard member of his could do to her member...
“Shall I take your silence as yes?” The sheikh’s tone was one of polite inquiry. “Perhaps we may even put it to a test – in the interest of a fair and scientific pursuit of the truth, perhaps we could indulge in a little demonstration of how my cock finds your pussy—-”
“Enough, Your Highness!” Anisah rolled her eyes even as she struggled to keep her amusement from showing. Oh, the things this man said!
“You should do that more often,” the sheikh murmured.
She was bemused. “Roll my eyes?”
“I meant this.” Leaning forward, Tarif pressed a finger to Anisah’s pursed lips, and his eyes gleamed as she jerked away from his touch. “Smiling, anisdi. Is it so bad that I make you smile?”
He expected her to deny this, but instead she said without hesitation, “Nem, alshaykh,” and Tarif threw back his head with a laugh. There she went again, surprising him once more with her unexpectedly straightforward manner. It could only bode well for them, Tarif thought in lazy satisfaction. With this woman in his life, he doubted he’d ever be bored.
Gazing at her with hooded eyes, he murmured, “If my ability to make you smile is shameful, then you must abhor the fact that you are attracted to me.”
Anisah’s teeth gnashed at the good-natured humor underlining the sheikh’s tone. “This may be a laughing matter to you,” she snarled, “but it is not so for me. I don’t even understand why I f-feel...you know.” The sheikh smirked at the way she stumbled over her words, and she grew more livid. “That is precisely why it makes no sense I feel this way!”
“That?”
“There’s just something about you that rubs me wrong,” she couldn’t help growling, “and everything you do and say just makes me so—-”
“Frustrated?” Tarif guessed. “Furious? Restless?”
“Yes, yes, yes!”
“Enough to tempt you to hit me even?”
“Yes!”
The sheikh nodded in understanding. “It’s called sexual frustration.”
“Ye-—I mean no!” She shot up in her seat in a mixture of horror and annoyance. “How in the world did you end up with—-” Her words came to an unplanned halt when she noticed the way the sheikh was lowering his head towards her, and she caught her breath.
This...was...not...good.
“S-Sheikh—-”
“You do not believe me?”
“No—-”
“I see.” The sheikh’s lips curved. “That’s too bad.”
No, it wasn’t, Anisah thought. It was good.
“Because now I’d have to prove otherwise...with a demonstration.”
The sheikh was right, Anisah thought. It was bad.
And with this, she quickly planted her hands against the sheikh’s hard chest and tried to push him away. “Your Highness! No! Stop!”
But the sheikh’s head only continued to descend, and now even his large, powerful body was crowding closer and making Anisah plaster herself helplessly against the window behind her back.
“Tarif,” the sheikh rasped, and this time his voice was so thick with desire she almost whimpered at the sound of it. “Don’t you think it’s time you called me by my name?”
Oh stars of the desert, please help me...
Anisah could only shake her head as the heavens appeared deaf to her prayers, and her body started feeling hot, heavy, and oh, so, achingly wet. “This is wrong—-”
“Because I’m a sheikh? Or because you think I am not the kind of man you should be attracted to?”
“I...I...” Oh curse him, it was so hard to think with the way the sheikh was looking at her, and she said almost despairingly, “You really don’t want me, Your Highness. You only think you do—-”
Tarif almost smiled, thinking how no other woman would say such a thing to him. “Believe it or not, but I used to question my obsession with you as well. You, my sweet, are not the kind of woman I am normally attracted to either.”
The words stung more than she expected it would, and Anisah glared at the sheikh. “No one’s forcing you to like me, Your Highness, and nothing you say can ever make me change myself—-”
The sheikh interrupted her, asking, “Do you even know what I like or don’t like about you?”
Her lip curled. “It’s easy to take a guess. I am neither as beautiful nor as glamorous as any of your other women—-”
“That is not—-”
Having gained momentum, Anisah didn’t let the sheikh cut her off, saying hotly, “And no doubt you also dislike how I refuse to pander to you like the others do as well as the fact that I never hesitate to speak the truth about your shortcomings.” She shot him a triumphant look. “Am I not right?”
Anisah waited for the sheikh to admit the truth, but all she got instead was a slow, sexy smile that had her toes curling.
Curses.
“Actually, my sweet – everything you spoke of are what arouses me—-”
Another choking sound of despair escaped her. “Does nothing not turn you on?’
In response to her question, the sheikh suddenly grabbed her hand, and before she realized what he had planned, the sheikh had already guided her fingers to curl around his erection. Her stunned gaze flew to his, and the sheikh smirked. “The answer is now in your hands.”
Oh my heavens!
It was just too much, and she couldn’t help but choke with laughter even as she tried her very best not to let the way his big, hard, throbbing manhood kept pulsing demandingly in the circle of her fingers.
The sheikh suddenly moved closer, causing his length to push forward in her grip. The sheikh groaned, and Anisah bit back a cry. She had the most burning urge to start stroking him, to make his manhood push in and out between her fingers, all so she could hear him make that sound one more time—-
“Tory—-”
Her fingers involuntarily tightened, the sheikh groaned again, and her whole body sang.
Tarif was doing his best to keep himself under control, but the way her fingers were wrapped so tightly around his phallus only served as a painful reminder of how her pussy could be just as tight. Maybe even tighter—-
Ah God.
He looked at Anisah. “I want to fuck you. I need to fuck you.”
Her face went up in flames. “Sheikh, p-please, your language—-”
“I intend to have sexual intercourse with you.”
Oh, curse him.
“Copulation between us is inevitable.”
“S-Sheikh!” But try as she might, her pursed lips proved defenseless against the sheikh’s deadpan humor, and a small, helpless laugh escaped Anisah even as her body grew more restless with unquenched need.
“I made you laugh.”
The sheikh’s smug tone had Anisah making a face. “Don’t get used to—-” His erection twitched powerfully in her grip all of a sudden, and her voice faltered.
“Blame it on the sound of your laughter.” Tarif’s voice was matter-of-fact. “It’s so damn rare it has me close to cumming.”
“Oh...sheikh.” Her lips started to wobble, her fingers started to shake—-
“Quit fighting it, Tory. You find me funny—-”
Something flickered in her eyes, and then she was yanking her hand away as her face paled.
“Tory—-”
She shook her head. “You’re right. I find you funny. I shouldn’t, but I do, and I don’t want it. I’d rather find you sexually irresistible than funny, sheikh—-”
Tarif stiffened.
“I know it sounds ludicrous, but I must not find you funny, sheikh.”
Tarif’s jaw tightened.
“And you know why. I know you know why.”
If she had said this two months ago – one week ago, hell, even one day ago – he would have told her no. She was wrong. He had no idea what she was talking about, and he would have meant it.
But things were different now, and unease uncoiled inside of Tarif as he recalled the things he had recently learned about Anisah.
Smiles are a luxury to her, and so are her tears.
She doesn’t believe she has the right to smile or cry when so many people had lost their lives because of our father.
Everything she does is to atone for sins even when she’s a victim herself!
In the beginning, all Tarif had set out to do was to make Anisah regret her unflattering opinion of him. But then he had gotten to know her more, and with it he found himself wanting something different – he had wanted her to realize she was the man meant to take her virginity.
And now, things had changed again.
The things he used to want had lost their value. They had ceased to matter the moment he realized he had achieved something else – something greater and more precious.
He had sought to change her opinion about him, and he had done that. He had sought to seduce her and make her want him the way a woman wanted a man, and he had done that. But one thing he had not sought and yet still ended up doing was giving her a reason to smile.
He actually had the ability to make her smile and laugh the way she made him smile and laugh, and goddammit, if he had to choose – he would rather have her smile than her body.
Life had dealt Anisah the worst card in the pack by giving her a father like Sidqi Kahveci, but she had overcome this with quiet dignity and strength that bordered on obstinacy. While she might constantly exasperate him with her recklessness and defiance, Anisah was also one of the few women in this world he genuinely respected. Her refusal to compromise and her willingness to stand for her convictions were the things he admired most about her, never mind if they were also the same traits that made her fight against the sexual attraction simmering between them.
Anisah of all people deserved to have something to smile about for the rest of her days. He genuinely wanted that for her – but did he want it enough to give up on making Anisah his lover?
Tarif knew it was only a question of time – a matter of when and not if – before Anisah became his. Sooner or later, she would be his woman – but would his honor allow this even if it meant Anisah changing for good? Did he want her enough to risk destroying the very things he wanted about her?
“Sheikh?” The odd look on the sheikh’s eyes made Anisah wary. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Probably because I can’t make up my mind if I want to strangle you or kiss you.”
Her mouth opened and closed.
“Any preference?”
Getting strangled would kill her, but since getting kissed would be just as suicidal, she could only frown at him, muttering, “There is no lesser evil between the two.”
A crooked smile played on the sheikh’s lips. “I see.”
He did?
“I’ll make the choice for you then, anisdi.”
She stilled.
“I promise not to bother you again...if you promise you’ll always find a reason to smile.”
Chapter Ten
Apples were fruits, whales were not fishes, and Tarif Al-Atassi was a selfish playboy sheikh. These were the facts in life that kept the world turning, and disproving any of them were what made the world come tumbling down.
Like hers did now.
I promise not to bother you again...if you promise you’ll always find a reason to smile.
Anisah was almost tempted to treat the whole thing like a joke and pretend she hadn’t heard him right. Excuse me? Say that again, Your Highness? Did you actually let something else overrule your ego and that thing between your legs for once?
Oh, if only she could say such things.
If only she could be so rude.
If only.
But she would not be herself if she had said any of those things, and so an almost helpless sort of laughter started to bubble in Anisah’s throat as defeat became imminently uncertain. She had begged him not to be funny, so the cursed man had chosen to be nice instead, which was a thousand times worse.
She thought of the way they had been circling each other for so many weeks now, sometimes like knights in a joust, other times like a couple about to dance a waltz. Every instance had been as dangerous as it was exciting, with twists and turns that forced them to come into contact, often too close for comfort, so cursedly close there was no way not to see through each other’s souls.
In the course of their swordplay, in the middle of their dance – she didn’t really know how or when exactly it had happened; all she knew was that for such a long time now, the sheikh had ceased being a one-dimensional symbol of her fears.
Tarif Al-Atassi, with his blazing charm and gorgeous looks, his penchant for getting into scandals and overstepping the bounds of tradition and propriety, represented disruption, chaos, and all the things that could undermine the proper and peaceful life she had so painstakingly built for herself and Hyacinth.
And yet...somewhere down the road, she had ceased to care that he was so. Somewhere along the way, he had become something else – something more, and now, with just how every fight and every dance had to end – it was time for Anisah to make a decision.
