The Sheikh’s Sham Engagement (The Safar Sheikhs Series Book 3) Read online

  “Home sweet home,” Willow said, hugging herself. “You don’t think this storm will let up soon?”

  “I think it’s safe to say we’re here for the night.” He scuffed his toe against the ground. “It would be too much of a risk to try to get back at night, anyway. Let’s get some rest and see what we can do in the morning.”

  Willow nodded and then shrugged off her cardigan and slipped off her shoes. She sighed as she eased onto the foot of the mattress. Then she looked up at him, something like a smile stuck on her face, and suddenly he was falling, falling back into the past. How many times had she looked at him with those gorgeous green eyes, waiting for him to join her in bed?

  His chest constricted, and he stepped out of his shoes, plopping onto the mattress next to her. He needed to forget thoughts like those. They were about to spend the entire night inches apart, and thinking about her bedroom eyes wouldn’t help.

  “Get ready for the best night of sleep of your life,” Willow cracked, lying back. Nasser joined her, and the two of them stared up at the vaulted tent ceiling, the sides of their arms touching. Half of Nasser’s body hung off the flat mattress.

  “Extremely luxurious,” Nasser added. “What rating does this tent have? Five star?”

  Willow snickered. “I think I saw this room listed on luxuryhotels.com. Right after the Ritz.”

  “I’m still wondering when our bellboy will arrive with the luggage.” Nasser shifted, and he slid off the mattress and onto the ground. “Maybe we can call the front desk and ask for a new mattress.”

  That got her. Willow burst into laughter, slapping his arm. God, it felt just like old times. The two of them could have fun together in a war zone, and he’d forgotten that as the years wore on.

  “I’ll call the front desk right now,” Willow said, wiping at her eyes, “and order a bottle of wine too.”

  “The fermented juice with dinner didn’t hit the spot?” Nasser asked, turning onto his side to face her. At least now he was entirely on the mattress.

  “Oh, it did. I just have a couple more spots that need to be hit.”

  His brows shot up just as she looked over at him. Realization crept over her face, and more giggles erupted.

  “You know I can help you hit whatever spots need attention,” Nasser said a moment later, squeezing at her hip through the long skirt. His heart raced as he awaited her reaction. This was a blatant come-on, and she wouldn’t miss it. Not with the way his voice had dropped.

  “If I stay on this mattress all night, I think all my spots will need attention.” She rolled over onto her side toward him, grinning at him. At least this felt organic. Natural. Inviting, even. He scooted closer to her without even meaning to. Their noses were just inches away. He wanted to kiss her so bad he could barely think of anything else. The need pulsed inside him, practically blinding him. Two years away from these lips had been too long, he realized in a flash.

  He needed to taste Willow again. Even if it was just for this one, crazy night.

  “We should probably spoon then.” He danced his fingers over her hip, teasing at going further. She bit her bottom lip, wriggling a bit closer toward him.

  “Right. I think it’s necessary in our luxury bed.”

  Nasser palmed the swell of her hip, jerking her closer. Their legs brushed, and electricity raced through him. Willow tilted her head toward him. Everything in him vibrated with knowing. It was time.

  Nasser swept down and captured her lips in a soft kiss. Willow melted against him, one kiss turning into so many more. She whimpered once he pressed his tongue past her lips, scraping her fingernails against the sides of his cheeks as she gripped his face.

  Nasser rolled over on top of her, pinning her to the thin mattress. More memories flooded him—their countless nights of passion together, the way she always clung to him, her throaty laughs in the middle of lovemaking. But the memories were tinged with something else now. A freshness that only stoked his fire further. Willow was more of a woman now. The span of time they’d been apart made her practically a new person.

  But these kisses hadn’t changed. Not one bit. Nasser wriggled his hips between her legs, her knees splaying apart.

  “After all, we must stay warm overnight,” Nasser added, sitting back to tear his kaftan off. He tugged Willow’s tank top off next, gobbling up the view of her moss green bra against her barely-tan skin. Yes, he’d missed her body, all the way down to the series of freckles on her rib cage that always reminded him of Orion’s Belt. He made quick work of tugging off her skirt, pausing only to shimmy out of his pants and briefs. The cool air greeted his naked butt, sending shivers down his spine.

  “See?” He brushed his lips against her upper thigh, where goosepimples had erupted. “We definitely need to do all the activity we can to stay warm.”

  “I wonder what sort of activity you have in mind,” Willow said, arching against him as his lips drifted toward her panty line.

  “Oh, just general snuggling.” He nuzzled the crotch of her panties. Being between her legs made it feel like no time had passed at all. The past two years were reduced to the blink of an eye and Willow had never abandoned him. Maybe this was the place he was meant to be. Between her legs.

  “General snuggling,” Willow repeated with a snort, which turned into a sigh when he took a gentle bite at the mound of her pussy. Nasser nuzzled the damp crotch of her panties, then slid them down her legs and over her ankles. He’d always loved eating her out, and it seemed somehow appropriate to remind her of how much fun he used to have between her legs. If they were going to have one wild night in this tent, then they might as well touch all the old bases.

  Willow arched as his tongue pressed into the damp folds of her pussy. When she started to moan, he shushed her and then plunged his tongue inside her. That sparked her trademark throaty laugh, which made Nasser’s cock pulse with need. He’d been hard basically since she showed up, and now he was damn close to his breaking point.

  He licked and slurped at her clit until she fisted his hair. Then he pulled back and grabbed for his wallet. He always came prepared, even during sandstorms in the far reaches of Al Ghuman. He rolled the condom on while Willow clawed at his chest, and then he was sinking down, down, down into her. Time stopped in Willow’s wide eyes. Her velvet heat felt exactly like going home.

  He’d had plenty of sex over their two years apart. But hell if anybody else could make him feel like this.

  Time dissolved under the spell of Willow. They formed a fast, intense rhythm, Willow bucking up against him as he drilled down deep inside her. Their eyes locked as they rocked and ground against each other, the only sound the infrequent gasps or small grunts.

  Nasser’s orgasm clawed at the edges of his composure. He beat it back as long as he could, but he had to let the floodgates open before indecency threatened to reign in the form of animal noises. He buried his face in Willow’s neck as he came, his abs jerking and spasming as he filled the sweet heat inside of her. Willow clawed at him like she was trying to escape, but he knew that only meant she’d reached her peak right alongside him. Like they always had. Together.

  He breathed heavily into the hollow of her neck before he was able to lift himself off her. He found complete and utter satisfaction in those green eyes.

  “I think we’re ready for bed,” Nasser whispered, then they both smiled through a kiss.

  3

  Willow tapped her foot against the glossy tile of the palace hallway. It felt like eons since she’d been here, at the Safar palace, but she could probably navigate it with her eyes closed if she tried. This place had been her second home at one time. And now? It was a place of business. Something both intimate but distant. A situation made even more evident by how long she’d been sitting outside Nasser’s office, waiting to meet with him like any commoner off the street.

  It stung a little. It did. Especially when all her memories associated with this place involved rapt attention and luxury. But now?

  Business colleagues. Just like it should be—she needed to remind herself of that.

  Because apparently their sexy emergency night in the tent would remain just that. They’d woken up fine the next day, with only one small snafu. The condom had broken. Willow tried not to freak, and Nasser was adamant that things would be okay. They’d returned to Al Ghuman, parted ways, and went on with their separate lives.

  Except now Willow had another snafu. Something that might be a little worse than a broken condom.

  To pass the time, she opened up one of her favorite shared folders on her phone, something she’d been adding to continually since its creation right after moving back home to help take care of her sister. Her ESCAPE folder, begun as a way to help her sister envision the future. Shared between all devices, all of her wild travel dreams lived here. Swimming in the underground caves in Belize. Visiting mummies in Egypt. Researching long-term living in Italian villas.

  Any life she could think of, she liked to research and plan. Just to see what it might be like.

  Just as she opened a map of Eastern Europe, Nasser’s office door opened. Someone in very traditional tribal garb strode out with a frown, and Nasser poked his head out a moment later.

  “Hey, were you waiting long?”

  She shook her head, even though she had been. “Not really. Can we speak?”

  “Sure.” Nasser went back into his office, and she followed him inside, immediately sensing the tension in the room. She didn’t know what was wrong with him and was hesitant to add more to his plate. But this issue needed to be dealt with by someone with power. With sway.

  “What can I do for you?” Nasser paused at the side of his desk, staring at a paper there as he ran his fingers absent mindedly back and forth over the surface. Willow didn’t know which approach was better—pretend like the other night had never happened or act chummy like the best of fuck buddies. Everything was strange, and she didn’t like how good it felt to just be in his presence again.

  Better to just cut to the chase and let the pieces settle where they may.

  “I have a visa issue,” she blurted, easing into the chair facing his desk. This office was new, and it looked like a good representation of Nasser. Tribal yet cool. Mauve curtains over a tall window overlooking the hedge garden. Ancient prints paired with the sleekest of sleek desk and computer system. Nasser always wanted the best electronics, and it looked like he had exactly that, based on the three monitors lining his desk and the speakers positioned around the periphery of the room.

  “Okay. You can’t get it sorted?” Nasser still hadn’t exactly looked at her, and she couldn’t tell if it was distraction or something else. Maybe their night in the tent still lurked in his mind too.

  “No. That’s why I came to see you. I need you to pull some strings.” She crumpled, examining her nails as she spoke. “I knew I’d be getting the standard tourist visa for this job, which gives me three months. But I figured that I could transition to the work visa once I got here. I recently found out that my work visa application was rejected. I don’t know why. But if we can’t rectify it, then my tourist visa is going to expire in a month and a half.”

  Nasser’s brows formed a straight line. Finally, those dark eyes swung her way, sending a chill through her. “But the tourist visa is for three months, which is how long this project should take. Did they give you a shorter tourist visa?”

  “No. I got a three-month visa.” Now she was wringing her hands, realizing how her overpreparedness might actually become her downfall here. “I just came to Amatbah early.”

  “A month and a half early?”

  “Yes. I wanted to be prepared. Make sure everything was ready and planned out.”

  Nasser sighed, and she could practically hear the words he always used to use with her—you’re going to plan yourself to death. She couldn’t deny it. She was an overplanner. It was just fun for her. It kept her sane. But now it might get her kicked out of the country.

  “And you’ve already applied for the work visa?” He leaned against the edge of his desk and crossed his arms. He was close to her—close enough to touch if she moved just the right way. Did he sit like this with all his appointments?

  Maybe this meant there was still some intimacy between them. Even though she knew there shouldn’t be. He’d made it very clear two years ago that he couldn’t be bothered to wait for her. For every plan that Willow had made during their relationship, Nasser had done his best to buck it. She should take the broken condom as a sign. Their relationship was just as broken, and no amount of nostalgia would fix the issues that had ruined them the first time around.

  They were opposites. No matter how hot and doting he was, Nasser would never be able to plan for anything solid in the future. He just wasn’t built for it.

  “Yes. It was the first thing I did when I got here,” Willow explained. “I had everything ready, followed the instructions to a T.” She paused, wondering if she should mention that she had actually gone straight to the government building after her plane landed. She’d been that on top of things. “There’s no explanation of why my work visa was rejected. I’m planning on going there tomorrow to ask, but I thought that I should let you know now. If they don’t end up approving it, then this could derail the progress of the school.”

  “And what will happen if you have to bow out of the project?”

  Willow deflated. “Progress will halt. The infrastructure can be completed without me here, but once it comes time for hiring and educational implementation, we’d have to wait until I could return.”

  Nasser’s jaw flexed as he stood and took to pacing the far wall of the office. He rubbed at the back of his neck, unnervingly quiet.

  He was quiet so long Willow was ready to speak up. Finally he dragged his gaze her way and said, “Why do you have to overprepare for everything?”

  There it was. Bullets zooming from their shared past, hitting her right where it hurt. Even the tone of his voice sounded the same. She swallowed a knot in her throat, surprised by how much this could still affect her after so long.

  “Probably for the same reason you underprepare for everything.”

  He narrowed his eyes, and she couldn’t believe she’d chosen to dive headfirst into the past right alongside him.

  “Oh, come on,” he spat.

  “Listen,” she said quickly, eager to avert the argument brewing just under the surface. “What you think about my preparation skills is irrelevant. This is the situation, and I’m asking you for help. Can you do anything or not?”

  Nasser held her gaze. She saw lots of things in his dark chocolate eyes. Fieriness. Confrontation. Wisps of passion, even. But this encounter right here proved to her that she needed to keep her distance from Nasser. Even if her body craved his heat with an intensity that could make her buckle if she thought about it for too long.

  “I’ll work on it,” Nasser finally said.

  Willow thanked him, then hurried out of his office before she could say something stupid. Like any number of the things that danced just below the surface, urging her to invite him to dinner or ask him over to her hotel room.

  Those were bad ideas. And she’d see it soon enough.

  She just had to let her heart catch up to her brain.

  4

  At family dinner that night, Nasser decided to bring up Willow’s visa issue. He’d been mulling over the situation all day, but if anybody knew the legal ins and outs of Willow’s options, it would be Fatim.

  Nasser picked at his food. He hadn’t been very hungry the past few days. The knot in his belly told him it had something to do with Willow, but he didn’t want that to be true, so he simply ignored it. Her being back did not affect him. Their night in the tents had been normal.

  Everything was fine.

  “Brothers,” Nasser began. “I need your advice on a certain type of predicament.”

  Both Fatim and Amad perked up at the word “advice.” They loved being able to dole out advice, and Fatim especially loved to play the wise, older brother part ever since he’d ascended to crowned sheikh. He could tell Calla and Vanessa were tuning in, even as they occupied themselves with spooning food into their babies’ mouths.

  “Nasser needs advice?” Amad asked with a grin. “This will be good.”

  Nasser sent him a stern look before continuing. He gave them the rundown of Willow’s situation in as few words as possible—tourist visa, work visa application, rejection—leaving out any details that might hint as their previous relationship or any unexpectedly hot nights in tents.

  “Ooooh, is this your ex-girlfriend?” Calla asked, her eyes lighting up.

  Nasser deflated. So much for avoiding the elephant in the room. “Yes. She’s my ex. But that’s beside the point. She’s here for work.”

  “I want to meet her,” Vanessa said.

  “She’s from Nebraska or someplace?” Calla asked.

  “lllinois,” Nasser clarified, folding and then unfolding his napkin in his lap. “Anyway, it does seem odd to me that her visa would be rejected. She was here on a four-year student visa, and now the tourist visa…”

  Fatim frowned, tapping his finger against the tabletop. “It does seem odd, but I know the immigration offices have been cracking down lately. There’s been some abuse of work visas, and maybe the jump from student to tourist to work raised a red flag.”

  “Well, she needs the work visa, or else this project won’t be completed.”

  The table fell silent, and then Calla gasped a moment later.

  “You two should get married!”

  Nasser set his jaw, counting to five before responding. He didn’t need to get curt with Calla over this. Not when Fatim would have a stern look waiting for him. “That’s…out of the question.”

  “That’s a great idea!” Vanessa said, excitement shining on her face. Both women had abandoned the feeding of their babies and turned entirely toward the table.

  “It’s not,” Nasser reminded them. “She’s my ex for a reason. That doesn’t mean get married anyway.”