Sheikh's Command by Sophia Lynn

seemed molded to fit his, as if he was everything that she had ever wanted or needed. This was a man who could be a stone wall between her and the world, who could protect her the way that she had always yearned to be protected. All she had to do was to give up everything she had ever wanted.
    “We will never be like other people,” he whispered to her. “We will only be ourselves, and when I am with you, everything feels so good, so right. That is all that I need to think about for now. That is all I need in this moment.”
    She knew that it was not enough, that it could never be enough, but now he was kissing her again, stirring from her that fire that he could pull forth so easily. Her only consolation was that she could pull it from him as well. This time, when he kissed her, she kissed him back with all the fervor in her body. She tried to show him how much she needed him and wanted him, and as he rose over her again, she knew that this was the man who would make her his.
    ***
    After their second time, they fell into an exhausted slumber. When Olivia drifted off, it was with his breath hot against her shoulder, one arm draped over her hip. They slept together as if they had been born to do it.
    When she dreamed, however, it was a dark thing. She was dressed all in black, standing on an empty stage. A single white spotlight lit her up and made her blink, but that mattered less than her violin in her hands. She raised her bow to the strings and wrenched a wail of music from it, a song so wild and lost that she knew it was written from grief, from sorrow, and pain.
    It was the performance of a lifetime.
    When she stopped, the lights came up. She was playing in an enormous auditorium but the only person there was Makeen. He stared at her across the empty space between them. It had been the most amazing performance of her life, but he only watched her with eyes filled with dark contempt and distaste. She had never seen that kind of disgust on his face for her.
    Without a word, Makeen turned and made his way up the aisle. As she called his name, he strode from the room. He went out the door, and then she was alone.
    No, not alone.
    Her brother stood beside her, dressed in his cheap court suit, a sickly smile on his face.
    “Guess you weren't good enough for him after all, Sis,” he said, and with a gasp, she sat up in bed, staring in the darkness. Beside her, Makeen stirred, and she lay back down.
    It was just a dream, she tried to tell herself, but she stayed awake and watchful until dawn.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    The next week passed in a blur. Olivia and Makeen spent every moment together, but far from being a trial, Olivia could not believe how much she desired it. It was as if he had opened the gateway inside her to something that she had always wanted without ever knowing that it was what she needed.
    “I forget who I am when I am with you,” she said one night in bed. Her shoulders were covered with love marks, and her lips were bruised with the force of their kisses.
    “I never forget who you are,” he said. In the moonlight streaming through the window, under stars that were brighter and more beautiful than any she had ever seen, he looked like a god come to earth, one who had chosen her for his true consort.
    “And who am I?” she asked, her lips curving in a soft smile.
    “You are perfection. You are talent and passion and music and need and desire. You are Olivia, and you must be loved.”
    The words brought a kind of stillness to her. Her panic must have shone on her face, because Makeen only laughed a little.
    “Were you not ready to hear those words yet? They are true, I assure you.”
    “You … you love me?”
    She had heard the words before. She had heard them from men who only wanted one thing, and they used those words like a goad, trying whatever it took for her to give them what they really desired.
    “I do,” he said, and there was no stress in his body at all, only a calmness that soothed her