A Secret Birthright

chapter Nine



Fareed gazed down on Gwen and thought this was what sunlight would be like made flesh, made woman.

Her hair gleamed and her skin glowed in the flickering light of a dozen oil lamps. He’d placed them around this bedroom with only her in mind. This bedroom that wasn’t his.

After all the time he’d fantasized about having her in his bed, he’d picked her up that first night, and his feet had taken him here. A guest suite that had never been used before. He’d wanted them to have a place all their own, a place he hadn’t been before, where all the memories would be of her, of them.

He leaned over her, his heart in a constant state of expansion. Her lips, slightly parted in sleep, were crimson and swollen from his possession. Just their sight scorched him with the memories of the past days. He bent and took them, unable to have enough. She moaned, opening for him, her tongue first accepting the caress of his own, then dueling with it, in that never-ending quest for tasting, taking, surrendering. Even in the depth of sleep, she couldn’t have enough either.

He’d lost track of how many times he’d possessed her, how many times she’d claimed him back.

He pulled back, filled his sight and senses and memory with her, beyond his fantasies, lush and vital and glittering in the dimness, naked and vulnerable and the most overwhelming power he’d ever known. Her hold over him was absolute.

His love for her was as infinite.

He groaned as emotions welled inside him, debilitating and empowering, even as his body hardened beyond agony. He needed to plunge into her depths again, mingle with her body and soul.

His hand glided over her, absorbing her softness and resilience, the pleasure that hummed inside her at his touch, the craving echoing his. He caressed her from breast to the concavity of her waist, over the swell of her hips and the curve of her thigh. His hand hooked beneath her knee, opening her over him.

He savored her every jerk betraying her enjoyment, her torment, even as she still dreamed. He bent and took more suckles of the breasts that had rewhetted his appetite for life. She moaned as she spread her thighs for him, cradled him in the only place he’d ever call home, where the fluid heat of her welcome was unraveling his sanity all over again.

Her eyes half opened, heavy with sleep and lust, endless, insatiable skies. “Come inside me, Fareed…now.”

He felt he now lived to hear her say this, to know how much she needed him, to join them in unbridled intimacy and abandon, to take every liberty and give every ecstasy.

He pressed into her, reveling in the music of her gasps, the intoxication of her undulations, the urgency of the hands that clamped his head to her engorged-with-need flesh, begging him to devour her. The scent of her arousal sent blood crashing in his head, thundering in his loins.

He raised his head to take her vocal confessions, poured his own. “Every moment with you, ya roh galbi is magic. I want everything with you, every contradiction. Right now, I want to be giving and tender and I want to be greedy and ferocious, all at once.”

She clung to him, wrapped her legs around him, her lips feverish over his face and shoulders and chest. “You almost wrecked my sanity with your last session of giving tenderness. Give me greedy and ferocious, please. Please, Fareed, please!”

He’d never known there was such pride, such pleasure, as that her desire could engender. Now her urgency hit a chord of blind lust inside him, reverberated it until it snapped.

He snatched her beneath him, rose above her, his senses ricocheting within a body that felt hollowed. Every breath electrocuted him. Every heartbeat felt like a wrecking ball inside his chest. He wanted to tear into her, pound her until there were no more barriers between their bodies. And she wanted him to do it, to plunder her, was shaking apart for his domination.

But he’d give her even better. He’d give it all to her.

He unlocked her convulsive limbs from around his body, ignored her cries of protest, swept her around on her stomach.

She whimpered as he held her down, captured her mound. His fingers delved between her soaking folds to her trigger. She climaxed with the first strokes, bucking and shuddering beneath him.

He showed her no mercy, fingers gliding, spreading the moistness from her core, made her shred her body and throat on pleasure.

He kept stroking her, raggedly encouraging her to have her fill of pleasure, until she slumped beneath him. Then he plunged his fingers inside her, his thumb echoing the action on the outside. She writhed under the renewed stimulation; the need for release a rising crest of incoherence. She thrust against his hand until his “Marrah kaman, ya galbi” hurled her convulsing into another orgasm.

She subsided beneath him, a mute mass of tremors. His fingers remained deep inside her, started preparing her for the next peak.

“I swear, Fareed, if you don’t take me now…I won’t let you take me for…for…” She stopped, panting.

“Not finding a suitable length of deprivation?” He chuckled, removing his hand. “Because you’ll also be depriving yourself?”

She threw him a smoldering glance over her shoulder, one that almost caused his already-overheated system to vapor lock. Then she purred, “Maybe there is another way out of this predicament.”

She thrust the perfection of her smooth, slick bottom back into his erection. Sensation ripped through him on a beast’s growl, making him lunge over her, snap his teeth into her shoulder, making her grind harder into him.

He ground back, whispered hotly in her ear, “I’m finding demonstrations far more effective than threats. Go on, give me examples of what you need me to do.”

The look she gave him this time, the sight of her as she trembled up to her knees, her waterfall of sunshine and ripe golden breasts swaying gently, blanked his sanity, almost made him slam into her. But the need to have her seek him, relinquish yet another notch of inhibition, overpowered even the insanity.

She lowered her head and upper body to the mattress. The total submission in her position, the devouring in her gaze as she rested her face against the dark sheets and silently demanded his domination, sent his breath hissing in his throat like steam, his erection filling with what felt like molten lead.

He still needed more. “A superlative demonstration. Now I need accompanying directions of what’s required of me.”

And she gave him what he needed. “I want you to bury yourself all the way inside me, holding nothing back, until you finish me, send us both into oblivion.”

The last tether of his restraint snapped so hard, he rammed into her with all the violence of its recoil, bottoming out in one thrust. A shout burned its way from both their depths.

“Nothing ever felt like this, Gwen,” he growled as he thrust deeper, harder into her, feeling as if he’d delved into an inferno of pure ecstasy. “Being inside you, this fit, this intensity, this perfection. Nothing could possibly be this pleasurable. But it is, you are, more pleasure than is possible. You sate me and craze me with insatiability. You burn me, Gwen, body and reason.”

She sobbed with every thrust. “You burn me, too…you fill me beyond my ability to withstand…or my ability to have enough. Oh, Fareed…the pain and pleasure of you…do it all to me…do it.”

Feeling his body hurtling into the danger zone, he put all his power behind each plunge. She writhed beneath him, thrusting back, letting him forge new depths inside her, panting more confessions, more proddings. Pressure built in his loins with each slide and thrust, each word, spread from the point inside her he was hitting deepest.

He rode her ever harder, insane for her release, for his.

Then like shock waves heralding a detonation too far to be felt yet, it started. Ripples spread from the outside in, pushing everything to his center, compacting where he was buried in her. He took her, in one more perfect fusion, and it came. The spike of shearing pleasure, his body all but charring with its intensity, slam after slam after slam of spreading satisfaction.

He pitched her forward, filled her with his white-hot release as they melted into one being, replete, complete.

An eternity passed before his senses rebooted. He heard a hum, felt it, pure contentment rising from her as she received his full weight over her back. It made him wish he could remain like this forever, containing her, covering her.

It was beyond incredible, what they shared. Every time had the exhilaration, the voracity, the surprise of a first time, yet had the practiced certainty of a long-established relationship.

After moments, with utmost regret, he had to obey the fact that he was twice her size and weight, and that no matter how much she insisted she craved feeling his weight, practical issues like blood circulation and breathing still existed.

He slid off her slippery, satin flesh, turned her limp, sated body around, gathered her into the curve of his body, locked her into his limbs. She burrowed into him, opened her lips on his pulse, her breathing settling back from chaos to serenity as she sank back into contented sleep.

He sighed in bone-deep bliss. Having her pressed to his side, having her in his life was nirvana.

He couldn’t believe it had been only a week since they’d first made love. It felt as if he’d always gone to sleep wrapped around her and woken up to her filling his arms.

Yet one thing marred the perfection.

Even though he felt their connection deepening, she was only vocal, only demonstrative when it came to physical passion. And only when he aroused her beyond inhibition.

When he’d thought he’d resolved her withdrawal the day after their first magical night, he hadn’t.

She’d woken up the next day with renewed desire to leave. He’d had to use every trick in the book of unrepentant seduction to make her relinquish her intentions.

He had, but only until the next day had dawned. She’d pulled back every morning, forcing him to recapture her each night. Then today, he’d come home running when Emad had informed him she’d been trying to arrange her departure from Jizaan.

That had driven it home that something serious was behind her persistence. But chiding her for trying to depart behind his back hadn’t shed any light on that motivation, or obtained a promise that she wouldn’t repeat her efforts. He’d given up trying, taken her in his arms, and everything had been burned away in their mutual abandon.

He still knew passion-induced amnesia would lift and she’d wake up pinched and troubled, and it would be déjà vu all over again.

But he wasn’t worried anymore.

He’d finally figured out why she tried to limit their involvement to a passion with a daily-extended expiration date.

His lifelong experience had been with women who’d wanted him for his status and wealth. But for Gwen, the reverse was true. Even though she appreciated everything that he was, the man and the surgeon, the very things that attracted other women repelled her. She’d made it clear how vital to her equality in a relationship was. How deeply disturbed she must be at what she perceived as the imbalance of power between them.

But now that he knew the source of her agitation and aversion, he had the perfect solution in mind.

Feeling secure next morning would break the cycle of her daily withdrawal, he snuggled with her and closed his eyes, contentment blanketing him.


“You can’t mean that!”

Fareed watched Gwen bolt up in bed, sighed. “Here we go again.”

Gwen groaned. “Don’t you start again, you know what I mean. But you still can’t mean that!”

He stroked the gleaming tresses that rained over the peaked perfection of her breasts. “I can and I do.”

She moaned as she caught his hands. “Don’t, Fareed. This is out of the question.”

“No, it’s not. You’re ideal, to say the least.”

Exasperation rose in her eyes again. “You’re just saying that because…”

And he turned serious. “Because I’m lucky beyond measure that the woman who blinds me with lust also arouses my utmost professional respect and satisfies my most demanding scientific standards.”

She gaped at him, then groaned, “Don’t exaggerate, please.”

He sighed again. “Do credit me with some professional integrity, ya roh galbi.”

“Don’t tell me you can’t find anyone better to be the head of R & D in your new multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical department. A job that seems to have just become available now.”

He shrugged. “It’s been available for a while and no one satisfied all my criteria. You do. Your narrow field of expertise, your body of work and future research plans, all which made me attend your presentation those years ago, fit the closest with my own practice’s best interests, and the center’s overall focus.” He ran a finger down her neck, between her breasts and lower. “What would you have me do? Look for someone less well-suited because you happen to be my specific libido trigger, too?”

She fidgeted in response to his words and touch. “Many would consider that a conflict of interest.”

“I’d consider it a conflagration of interest. Beside this…” He caught her against his chest, groaned his delight as her lush breasts flattened against him, as her breath caught and her body heated again. “I’d get the most innovative and intrepid researcher in the field I’m interested in, while you fulfill your professional aspirations. Think what you can achieve, for your own career, for me and the center, for the world, with all the resources I’ll put at your fingertips.”

She still shook her head. “I—I can’t stay here, Fareed.”

He chalked one point up to his cause. She was no longer contesting the position itself, was down to the next worry.

“I know some aspects of the kingdom and culture are alien to you, maybe even disturbing. But many aspects delight you, too, and you’ve assimilated into much of your surroundings. And then I will never let anything negative affect you, or Ryan or Rose, in any way.”

She bit her lip. He restrained his desire to replace them with his—he had to let her air her doubts so he could pulverize them.

She finally exhaled. “Nothing is really negative as much as it’s different. But you and your family… I just can’t get my head around how much power you wield here.”

He’d been right. She was disturbed by the extent of his and his family’s influence. She had seen the evidence of their almost absolute power in every aspect of life in the kingdom. “No one, including me and my family, will ever wield any power over you. You’ll always be free to make your own decisions, personally and professionally.”

“As evidenced by how I ended up doing everything you unilaterally thought was the only thing to be done?”

He cocked one eyebrow at her. “You’re saying I coerced you?”

“I’m saying free will and you are mutually exclusive.”

“I had to take charge of Ryan’s care. Then I had to make you act on our shared desire. But if I ever feel that being with me is no longer your priority or good for Ryan, if you ever have a better offer professionally, I won’t try to make you stay. This I promise you. On my honor.”

She looked as if she’d burst into tears.

Before he rushed to add something, anything, she choked out, “Oh, God, Fareed…you’re being so unfair. You’re…deluging me with so much. But I have to say no. I never dreamed it would go this far, but if you’re too blinded to care about your best interest, and ours, to end it now, I have to do it.”

He wanted to kick himself. He hadn’t considered those reasons for her reticence. That she believed he was compromising himself, and her, for something that would end. She was calculating the damages, to him, to her and Ryan, after such a finite, even if prolonged and powerful, interlude ended.

But he couldn’t make it clear he had no intention of ending this. Before he discussed permanence, he had to first resolve all her issues, about her and Ryan’s future here, give her more than offers and promises, show her how it would work in practice.

His cell phone rang. He ignored it, began, “Gwen, galbi…”

She grabbed his forearm. “Won’t you answer?”

“No.” He glared his annoyance at the phone on the dresser, tugged her nearer. “Now, Gwen…”

Her grip tightened. “That’s Emad’s ringtone.”

He shrugged. “He’ll call later. Gwen…”

“But he’s not hanging up,” she persisted. “It might be Ryan or Rose and my own phone is dead or something.”

She scrambled to get out of bed, and he stopped her, resigned that the moment was ruined.

“I’ll answer him.” He jumped out of bed, reveling in her hungry eyes on his aroused nakedness, despite her alarm. “And it’s not about Ryan or Rose, I’m sure, so you stay right there. I’m coming back as soon as I blast Emad to the farthest kingdom in the region.”

He felt steam rising from his skin as he snatched up the phone and put it to his ear.

Emad preempted his frustration. “I need to speak to you.”

“You couldn’t have picked a worse time,” he hissed.

Emad’s exhalation was weary. “That’s true, if not for the reason you mean. I am waiting downstairs in your office.”

“I’ll come down in an hour. Maybe two.”

“No, Somow’wak.” Emad sounded like never before. Blunt, brooking no arguments. “You’ll come down now.”


“Now” turned out to be twenty minutes later, the shortest time it took Fareed to dress and to take his leave of Gwen.

He strode into his office, displeasure roiling inside him. “You’d better have some unprecedented reason for this, Emad…”

Suddenly, Fareed’s blood froze in his arteries. The look on Emad’s face. This was momentous.

This was about Hesham’s family.

A lead had finally led somewhere. He could think of nothing else that would make Emad ask his presence so imperatively, or look so…so…

“You found them?” he rasped.

Emad gave a difficult nod.

Fareed’s heart crashed. “Something happened to them?”

Emad leveled grim eyes on him. “No, but it’s not much less terrible than if something had.”

“B’Ellahi, Emad, just tell me,” he roared.

Emad winced at his loss of control.

Then with regret heavy in his voice, he said, “I’ve found proof that Hesham’s woman is…Gwen.”