Handcuffed to the Sheikh (Hot Contemporary Romance Novella) Read online

  In a flash, she saw what he wanted. She was supposed to lower her arms so he could step out of the circle made by the handcuffs. She hadn't thought she could blush any harder. Damn, she must be purple in the face by now.

  "You could unlock me instead," she suggested, without much hope.

  "But hayati." A scarlet tongue wet his full bottom lip. "That would be so much less fun for me."

  He was in control—she couldn't do a thing about it. The more she resisted, the more he'd enjoy watching her writhe. Before she could think too much about it, she lowered herself to one knee and put her hands on the floor. Her cheek touched muscled thighs encased in dark, soft denim. She tried not to think about that, either.

  He took his time stepping back, drawing out her mortification as long as possible. Before she could stand again, he planted a leather boot on the chain of the cuffs. She couldn’t misread the message. He had all the power. She could submit, or suffer.

  On instinct, she looked up to see pitiless grey eyes smoldering at her. "Are you certain you will never apologize to me, Max?"

  ***

  Ten minutes later, Max was handcuffed to a sturdy wooden chair in the center of a luxurious living room with a picture window view of a private lake. The man had removed her Sketchers and disappeared into the kitchen. While listening for him to return armed with a huge knife to carve her up or a mallet to start breaking bones, she looked around for anything that might help her escape.

  It seemed like the place had been prepped for her arrival. Every flat surface was empty of safety pins that might pick locks, glass knick-knacks to make into weapons, and anything else she could hide in her palm.

  She'd asked where they were, what he wanted to do to her. He didn’t answer. When she asked why he was doing this, he'd given her a killing look, clenching both hands, and left the room as if he needed to regain control of himself.

  When he returned, he carried two glasses of wine and a china plate with sandwiches. She'd always been a sucker for a guy who at least tried to cook, and the sight of him in his tight black tee, carrying food, tightened something inside her. It would have been perfect, though she hated to admit it. Except then there was those handcuffs.

  She hadn't eaten in what seemed like forever, but no way would she admit her hunger. Her stomach had a different plan. It growled, betraying her weakness. He smiled in response.

  "Now," he said, as he pulled up a chair and sat backwards on it, hanging over the ladder rungs of the chair's back, spreading his legs wide in casual style. "We can talk in a civilized manner, I think. I have some questions for you to answer."

  "I wish I'd stayed in the Dominican," she told him.

  He froze for an instant, one hand fisting dangerously on the chair back as it had on the clipboard earlier that night. "No more than I do, hayati."

  She was too pissed off to worry about irritating him any more than he already was. "Why, was it easier to stalk me there?"

  "It has always been so easy to stalk you." He waved a hand in exaggerated dismissal. "In the Dominican or Newark. It is the same. But now I find myself wondering if it was too easy."

  Too easy to stalk her? That made zero sense. You're dealing with a crazy person, she reminded herself. No matter how hot, or how her treasonous body reacted to him, he was insane and she had to escape. Or to get a message to someone so they could rescue her.

  As if in response to that thought, he pulled out a cell phone and held it up to her. Wow, did it have great resolution... You could practically read the rivets on the back pockets of the jeans of the guy she was dancing with in the Dominican. Which made the photo that much creepier. It was definitely a stalker photo, taken in secret from a distance.

  "Explain this in a way that makes me understand it." His voice was caramel again, but poured over shards of glass. "I'm waiting, breathlessly."

  Her heart stuttered. She'd been so focused on being kidnapped that part of her hadn't truly believed she had a stalker until this second. Now she found herself locked in a room with him. The air seemed too thick to breathe.

  "I can dance with a guy if I want to," she spat out. "No man owns me, no matter what you imagine."

  His eyes narrowed. "Is that what you think? I wonder where you got that idea. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough with you. I won't make that mistake in the future," he said, a silky smooth threat.

  She hated herself for it, but he sizzled on her awareness like a sixth sense. Every tiny movement he made registered on her brain, from a slight shift of his weight to the motion of his Adam's apple. His body was plain amazing, lithe and sinewy, slim-hipped and wide-shouldered. Masculine and powerful. Not your typical pasty white stalker who spent too much time on the internet. Or hiding in bushes with a telephoto lens.

  "Am I going to have a future?" she asked.

  "That depends on your answers to my questions." He lowered his eyelids, but his gaze turned to steel. "Why did you leave?"

  Okay. Weird question. Then again, was she really expecting normal ones from Mister Hot-and-Insane? "I was only booked at the resort for a week."

  One big hand shot out, encasing her throat in a clenching heat. Terror squeezed her chest. This was it. He could crush her windpipe in an instant without even noticing. He would kill her now, and she'd never even know why.

  For three long heartbeats, he seemed to consider the situation, tipping on the edge of a fatal decision. She said nothing, but just held his gaze, hoping he had some humanity in him.

  Just as quickly, he dropped his head and let out a sigh. He didn't release her throat from his grip, but it softened, turning into the touch of a lover. "You know what I'm talking about. Explain it. After everything we've been to each other, you owe me that much." His thumb moved on her skin. Not violent, but gentle. Caressing. "This is why we're talking instead of you being dead already. The things you did... I can't understand. You made me believe you loved me. Even now, I want to make excuses for you, believe you did this for the good, that you were being threatened and did it to save us. But then my people show me pictures of you dancing with other men. It makes no sense. Why would you give me such a gift and then just leave?"

  Over the course of his speech, his intimidation had turned to something like vulnerability. If her hormones had been in overdrive earlier, they were burning jet fuel now. Her neck had turned into an erogenous zone, and the gentle trail his fingers traced on her skin stole her breath. There seemed to be such... care behind his touch. As he spoke, his threats circled the drain, as if he had steeled himself to say these things to her, but he would never have the heart to actually hurt her.

  With her body reacting to him as if she'd known him forever, she barely managed to keep his words in her head. Barely managed to speak. "What gift is that?"

  With a mocking snort, he pulled his hand away from her throat. "All this time I thought you were a bad liar. You are wasted in Newark. Have you thought about Hollywood?"

  She responded with all the heat of her betraying body's response. "Have you thought about a mental institution?"

  "I fear you will drive me to one." He cocked his head at her. "Did you sleep with any of them?"

  For some reason, she knew exactly what he wanted to know. That muscle in his jaw twitched, revealing this last question was ten times more important than anything he'd asked her yet. She fought the urge to lie just to hurt him. Not a good plan. It might make her life take a turn for the painful.

  "Did I sleep with any of the men at the resort, you mean?" She'd definitely gotten a couple of offers, from guys who seemed great. They hadn't interested her, though, something she hadn't been able to explain to herself. She'd enjoyed flirting, but didn't feel like going any further. "No," she told him. "I just wanted to dance."

  He searched her face for a moment, his smoke-filled eyes questing for truth. She found herself hoping he believed... and what did that mean? Why would she care if he thought she had an orgy with three guys in a hot tub and uploaded the film to YouTube? She couldn’t answer
the question herself. Not only was he a guy she'd just met, he was holding her against her will, handcuffed to a chair. She shouldn’t care about his feelings. Yet, something about him scraped her raw. And she was a moron for letting it.

  "Why was I so weak when it came to you? How can you cut me open so casually and then walk away? Do you even have a heart?" He leaned back in the chair, studying her like some kind of a puzzle. "Are you really Max Foss?"

  She narrowed her eyes at him. "Only since the day I was born."

  He paused, considering. "I believe you," he said, in an intellectual tone.

  As if to reward her for a correct answer, he got a sandwich from the plate on the table and lifted it to her mouth. It took her only a second to realize the hunger pangs that would come from refusing weren't worth her dignity. If a person cuffed to a chair had any dignity left. The sandwich was fantastic, filled with chicken flavored with exotic spices. She barely controlled her instinct to open her mouth for more, begging like a newborn bird in a nest.

  "So," he continued after he swallowed his own bite and took a drink of wine. "Who do you work for, then? And how long have you worked for them? Is it the Crimson Hand?"

  She frowned at him. "You suck as a stalker, don't you? I've been on LinkedIn for two years now. You could have checked it out there. I work as a project manager at RocketSoft. I've been there thirteen months now. I don't know any company called Crimson Hand, and if I did, I'd tell them to hire better marketing folks to rebrand them with something less creepy."

  "This is a fun game," he said, in a bland tone that said the opposite.

  "I'd like to play," she responded.

  "By all means."

  She shrugged as best she could with her arms restrained. "Who are you?"

  A muscle twitched in his jaw, as if it was the only part of him out of his control. He reached for a sandwich and chewed a bite while he seemed to chew his answer in his mind. She waited, trying to seem patient, just as casual as him.

  Finally, he decided on his answer. "I am Sayd al Zahar, of the kingdom of Ramadi. And I am your husband."

  Chapter Two

  Max couldn't help it. Maybe it was the jetlag or the drugs or the leftover adrenaline from being kidnapped. She couldn't control the peals of laughter that busted out of her. She laughed until her abs hurt. She laughed until tears streamed down her face. Her uncontrollable shaking threatened to overturn the chair.

  The guy—the so-called Sayd al Zahar—didn't laugh. He just watched her, white teeth showing between parted lips as if he couldn't figure out what to say.

  "Okay— okay—" she gasped between hoots. "You can murder me now. I'm ready. I've just heard the best joke of my life and I'm ready to die. Best. Abduction. Ever."

  For the second time, he captured her chin between strong fingers and tilted her face to his. Compared to her, with her small boobs and her upturned nose, he was a god. Though, truth be told, she must have gained some weight at the resort because her breasts had strained at her bra for the last couple of days. Still, she tried to imagine any possible world where this man would tie himself to her. The idea was so stupid she nearly started giggling again.

  "I always thought you the most wretched liar. That's why when you disappeared from the hospital three months ago, I was certain you had been taken from us. Then last week, you checked in to the hotel in the Dominican without even trying to conceal your identity, I couldn't understand. These actions made no sense." He seemed confused to his core, trying to understand what was going on by talking it out.

  But she was way ahead of him in his delusion. She closed her eyes and let the scenario wash over her. It was better than the plot of any outrageous soap opera. Actually, if she'd seen it on TV, she would have changed the channel. "I get it." She couldn't stop grinning, though he was probably working up to suffocating her with a pillow. "I'm your wife, but I don't remember it. This explains everything."

  She gasped as the sheer depth of his psychosis plunged clearly before her. "The Crimson Hand. It's not a software company. It's a terrorist organization. They're using me to get to you. You're going to have to kill me to protect yourself. I might be a sleeper agent. Someday I'll get a phone call that will activate me, turning me into a mindless automaton, bent on your destruction."

  He seemed less amused by the idea. In fact, he seemed to have trouble breathing. "What year is this?"

  She told him the year. And she told him the name of the current U.S. president, just for kicks.

  He exhaled a sigh, his shoulders drooping just an inch. "No, there is a new president now. You have lost two years of your life. If you can be believed."

  "Gained a husband, though," she said, brightly.

  "And lost him again."

  His grief, as he scrubbed a hand over his suddenly tired face, seemed genuine. Max felt a twinge of sadness for him.

  ***

  "And this one? Does it mean nothing to you?" He held up another photo.

  Sayd had left her handcuffed to the chair as he showed her doctored photo after doctored photo on his mobile phone. Now that she felt like he wasn't going to slit her throat in the next few minutes, she found herself just as interested in the phone itself as the photoshopped pics. The cell seemed like a prototype model of something a certain high tech company had just announced for release in two years. She didn't know how he'd managed to get a beta testing model, but he was a damn lucky madman. The photos showed her living a blissful life in her "husband's" arms. Too bad he was so very insane, because he could make photo editing software sit up and beg. Serious waste of a graphic artist there. She looked smiling and happy and natural in every picture. Every once in a while, he skipped over one before showing it to her. Those might have been his less brilliant creations, she imagined.

  "Don't remember that one either," she told him. "Have I told you how much I like your version of my life?"

  He set his jaw, clamping down on something he badly wanted to say.

  Now that she saw the whole thing from his point of view, his actions made total sense. The kind of sense that include committing a federal crime, but sense. To his mind, they'd been together for years when she'd disappeared mysteriously. He'd assumed someone had kidnapped her (Irony there), but hadn't received any ransom demands. In his fantasy world, he'd searched for her for months with no luck, suffering the agony of wondering if she was hurt or dead and not being able to save her. Her "reappearance" having a fun time at a resort didn't fit with his made-up scenario. If she'd been taken from him by force, wouldn’t she run back into his arms? The only answer was that she'd left him, and instead of telling him, she'd just disappeared. No wonder he was so pissed off he'd abducted her. In his delusion, they'd had this great relationship that she'd ended with a huge betrayal. Thus, the kidnapping. To get some answers, and to punish the hell out of her. She even went over some of their conversations in her mind and found his reactions to what she'd said a lot less crazy than when they'd been actually happening. No wonder her telling him to get off her doorstep had enraged him. To him, she was pure evil.

  Still, the name Sayd al Zahar itched in the back of her mind. She knew it from somewhere, or maybe something like it, but not quite the same. A Bollywood star? It could be the name of the actual ruler of the real-life Ramadi. It was so familiar. She should be able to place that name. It was going to drive her crazy—and he already had enough crazy for the both of them.

  "Uh, Sayd? Do you think we could take a break here?"

  "Just as well," he agreed. "I need more wine to face this."

  "Hmmm, wine might be the problem for me."

  Gray eyes looked at her in confusion. He'd done that a lot since revealing he imagined she was his wife.

  "Do I have to say it?" She'd crossed her legs a dozen photos ago. "I need to use the washroom. Unless you want me to have an accident in this chair, you're going to have to unlock me."

  Her bladder wasn't that bad. In truth, she hoped she could find something to use to escape in the washroo
m. He'd drugged her, so if she found something in his medicine cabinet to use against him, turnabout was fair play. She might get out of this after all.

  To her irritation, he didn't undo the cuff on her wrist, but unlocked the cuff from the chair. Her gut soured as he clamped it on his own wrist. So much for that plan.

  "Uhm, I think I can hold it, actually," she told him.

  "And I was so looking forward to watching you use the toilet," he said. "Hayati, I promise you your privacy, but I can't let you leave here without me."

  "Because of the Crimson Hand," she said, unable to keep the misery out of her tone.

  "They would have Ramadi stay in the dark ages forever. They do not care for you as my queen. You are in danger from them until we get you back to the palace and under protection." As he talked, he freed her other hand.

  She made a show of rubbing her wrist.

  "The cuffs were not tight, Max. You are a terrible liar," he said. "Or an Oscar-worthy actress."

  She held back a snort and gave up trying to make him feel bad. She got to her feet, but sitting for so long, plus the bike ride, and maybe the leftover drugs, had turned her knees to goop. Her legs gave way.

  Just as she thought she was doomed to do a face-plant on the Turkish carpet, she felt herself caught around the waist by Sayd's muscled arm. Rescued.

  In her relief, she leaned on him. She didn't have a choice; her legs refused to hold her up.

  His solid, warm chest pressed against her larger-than-usual breasts. They each wore a tee shirt, but that seemed like nothing now. They might as well be skin to skin. And his skin smelled great. A little smoke from the bike, a little pine from the forest, and some spicy undertone that seemed to be his natural smell. She just breathed it in, helpless to stand on her own.

  He lowered his face as if he couldn't bear to look at her. "Forgive me," he said simply. "I have missed you so much."