Tarif: A Desert Sheikh Romance Read online

  “It’s a pleasure to finally have a chance to speak with you.”

  “The honor and privilege is mine, Your Highness.”

  “I wonder if you truly mean that, anisdi.”

  Prim and proper Anisah Kahveci led a simple, orderly life with simple, ordinary goals.

  One: Terrorize – err, discipline – her students into becoming law-abiding, socially mindful citizens of the kingdom.

  Two: Work hard to secure a safe future for the brat – err, her younger sister.

  Three: Eat all the sweets – err, indulge in a scoop of ice cream now and then.

  But all her plans were for naught and her life turned upside down the moment Sheikh Tarif Al-Atassi decided he wanted her to be his woman.

  Note: This is a full-length standalone (no cliffhanger) romance written to bring laughter and tears into the reader’s life. It is 100% escapist, contains explicit (but not gratuitous) sex scenes, with an alpha hero and an innocent but fiery heroine falling in love and enjoying a happy ever after in the end.

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  “Tarif, we have to stop---”

  “Not until you come,” the sheikh rasped.

  Her eyes flew wide open. “No! There’s no more----” Time. That was what her last word was supposed to be, but it died in her throat as the sheikh started shoving his thick manhood faster into her – so much faster, and oh, harder than ever. He pounded into her nonstop until she spiraled into a screaming, mindless orgasm, and the sheikh had to cover her mouth with his hand to keep her cries from spilling out.

  Tarif knew the moment her senses returned, with color brushing her cheeks with a vivid shade of pink while her violet eyes went wide with appalled misery. He grinned, and she whimpered as he lifted his hand off her mouth.

  She shook her head, whispering, “I’m so…” Angry? Appalled? Ashamed?

  The sheikh raised a brow. “Late?”

  Anisah’s gaze flew to the classroom’s wall clock, and she cried out in horror when she saw she only had less than fifteen minutes before her next class started. Oh curse her life, the sheikh was right!

  Chuckling at the panic that crossed her lovely face, Tarif said soothingly, “Stop worrying, my sweet. I have guards outside. They won’t let anyone in until we’re ready.”

  “But---”

  “But nothing. Now be a good girl and stay quiet while I help you.”

  She didn’t even have time to protest, with the sheikh immediately moving to suit actions to words. He put her clothes to right, tucked loose locks of her hair back into her cap, and he did so with such efficiency that he had even time to arrange the soft layers of her headdress into place with minutes to spare.

  The sheikh stepped back with a smug smirk. “Well?”

  The words ‘thank you’ were stuck in her throat. She just plain hated it every time he proved his superiority, and so she glared up at him instead, saying ungratefully, “I wouldn’t be in trouble in the first place if it wasn’t for you.”

  But the sheikh only chuckled. “As always, my sweet – your sheer graciousness simply takes my breath away.”

  The barb successfully reached its mark, and Anisah could feel herself turning red again. “I honestly don’t know what I see in you,” she muttered under her breath. “If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you of bewitching me---”

  “Maybe I had.” The sheikh sent her a lazy, devastating smile. “After all, did you not say you found me ‘somewhat irresistible’?”

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  TARIF (A Desert Sheikh Romance)

  By Marian Tee

  Copyright 2017 by Streak Digital Publishing

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Prologue

  Two years ago

  “Your Majesty? Queen Harper?”

  But the queen didn’t even look her way and rushed past Anisah with her head bowed and her shoulders shaking. Foreboding stirred inside the queen’s court tutor, and after a moment’s hesitation, Anisah ran after the queen.

  “Your Majesty!”

  Anisah managed to catch hold of the queen when the other woman seemed to stumble upon crossing the palace’s massive doors. “Your Majesty, please---” Anisah helped her up, and that was when she saw the tears running down the queen’s face, and the unspeakable pain in her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry,” Harper choked as she wrenched her arm out of her tutor’s hold. “I’m sorry.” The queen’s voice shook. “But I just can’t---” She stopped, the words she wished to speak causing her too much to pain, and in the end all she could do was whisper, “I’m sorry. I just need to do this.”

  The queen ran down the steps of the palace, and the sight of her solitary, trembling figure had Anisah feeling frustrated and helpless. There was a nagging feeling inside of her that she had to do something.

  But what?

  Biting her lip, she sent a quick prayer to the heavens, picked her skirts up, and then she was running, too.

  By the time Anisah reached the gates, it was already chaos, the guards up in arms as mad protesters shook the gates while a sobbing Harper publicly performed a ritual that signified she was leaving the king.

  Oh dear God, what was happening?

  The outer gates suddenly swung open, and the mob turned rabid as they rushed in. Noise erupted from behind, and when Anisah spun around she saw another large crowd rushing towards the scene, led by news-hungry reporters and the unmistakable figure of Sheikh Mahmud.

  Violence threatened to break out, and the repugnant stench of anarchy began to stain the air. Sheikh Mahmud was still shouting; such horrifying, vile words of accusation against the queen, words that had Anisah wrapping her arms around herself as she twisted and turned, ran and crouched, all to avoid being trampled and getting caught in the crossfire.

  Danger danced around them, dressed in bloodlust, and Anisah felt like throwing up. If any of the words the sheikh were shouting was true, then as a citizen of Ramil, her loyalty was to the kingdom, and her duty was clear.

  She must not support the queen.

  But…

  None of the sheikh’s words made sense. None of it! To believe him was to believe that every moment she spent with the queen was a lie, and that she could never believe.

  Never!

  One of the protesters shoved a hooded figure towards her, and Anisah automatically reached for the woman to keep her from falling.

  “Are you alright---” She broke off in the middle of her question when she caught sight of a familiar pair of green eyes, the only part of the woman’s face revealed by her niqab. “Joanna?” Anisah gasped.

  The other woman gripped her wrist. “We should go! We could get killed here!”

  “No, wait---”

  But her friend had a death grip on her wrist, and Joanna was able to forcibly drag her all the way to the edge of the crowd.

  “I said wait!” Anisah was finally able to yank her hand free from her friend’s hold. “I need to go back,” she heard herself say.

  Joanna gaped at her. “Are you insane? Don’t you see what’s happening?”

  “The queen could get hurt.”

  “The queen’s a traitor,” Joanna hissed.

  “No, she’s not!” Anisah’s voice was fierce, and if anything, her friend’s accusation only made what she needed to do all the clearer. She gestured to Joanna’s headdress, asking abruptly, “May I borrow that?”

  “What for?” Joanna was visibly suspicious.

  “I’ll explain later. Will you lend it or not?”

  Less than a minute later, and Anisah was running straight back into the crowd, her identity now effectively concealed under the layers of silk of her friend’s niqab. The queen was sobbing now, begging for her personal guards not to involve themselves, and the sound wrenched Anisah’s heart.

  “Khayin!” Traitor!

  Anisah saw one of the protesters rushing forward from the sides, a large rock in his raised hand. He started to take aim, and a horrified cry escaped her when she realized where he had set his sights.

  “Your Majesty, duck!”

  The queen, recognizing her court tutor’s voice, instinctively crouched down, and her guards, alerted by the words, immediately raised their swords in defense. Farid was the first one to see the rock hurled at his queen and deflected it with his blade, causing it to change direction and strike one of the protesters. The man cried out as he touched his bleeding forehead.

  First blood.

  A cry of outrage rose from the mob, the sight inciting rage and unleashing madness, and a moment later---

  Red.

  The color of violence, of fear, of death---

  Of war winning over peace---

  Anisah pulled her own dagger from the hidden strap under her skirt. She would not stand by and do nothing. She would defend her queen, even if it meant sacrificing her own life.

  ****

  Two months ago

  “Stop.” At Sheikh Tarif Al-Atassi’s command, the technician immediately hit Pause, and tense silence reigned in the palace’s war room as the digital screen spanning the entire wall displayed a woman wearing a distinct-looking niqab of silver silk suspended mid-action, skirt raised up to her knees, and her fingers wrapped around the dagger she was about to unsheathe.

  Andy, the palace’s newly hired technician (and ex-inmate), knew he had no business being intimidated, but he was. ‘Tall, dark, handsome’ was a phrase oft used to describe the five Al-Atassi sheikhs in the room with him, and prior to marrying his foreigner wife, moving to Ramil, and becoming employed at the palace, Andy had secretly thought that was all there was to the kingdom’s most powerful sheikhs.

  He had met a good number of wealthy men during his former career as a hacker, and all of them had been one of three things: idiots, assholes, or both. He had thought the Al-Atassi sheikhs would be exactly like them…until of course he had found himself joining the king and h
is cabinet of vassals in a closed-door meeting at the palace’s war room.

  And that was that, Andy thought with a silent gulp, the memories of his first meeting with the sheikhs still more than enough to make him quail inside with fear. There had been Altair, the ex-assassin sheikh whose scarred face only made him more terrifying. There was Rayyan, the sheikh who seemed to have ice in his veins, with his unflinching ability to make decisions that would have made grown men cry. There was Malik, the one who had his pulse on all of the world’s greatest innovations, and of course there was the king, whose patriotic resolve was reminiscent of Arthur’s love for Camelot.

  And then of course there was Tarif.

  Tarif Al-Atassi, the kingdom’s so-called playboy sheikh, was what the modern world considered the ‘fan favorite’ because of the roguishly charming demeanor he always presented to the public. Of the five Al-Atassi sheikhs, Tarif best fit the bill of Prince Charming, and so the masses’ adulation of him was unparalleled---

  And that, in many ways, was what made him the most dangerous of the five, Andy thought. Tarif had the art of deception perfected. He was so skilled in manipulating people that he could have opposing sides salivating to kiss his ass without either of them knowing they were already being controlled. One moment the sheikh would smile at you, the next thing you knew the sheikh would have stabbed you at---

  “Andy.”

  The technician shot up straight in his seat at Sheikh Tarif’s voice.

  “Yes, Your Highness?”

  “Can you zoom in on the woman’s weapon?” The technician hurried to do his bidding, and Tarif’s gaze narrowed as he took note of the drawing engraved on the dagger’s gold-and-silver hilt. His knowledge of weaponry might not be equal to Altair, the kingdom’s Commander of Armed Forces, but even Tarif knew what the woman held in her hand was no ordinary knife.