Sheikh's Command by Sophia Lynn Page B

shock. “I came up here once after my parents died to see this place. There were stories about this swing.”
    Curiosity overcame her fear, and she tilted her head curiously at him. “Did you get on it?”
    “Then? No. I thought perhaps that I would give it a try today. What about you? Do you want to?”
    She bit her lip. Every bit of her common sense was telling her not to do this ridiculously foolish thing. It told her that under no circumstances should she get onto a swing that hung out over a steep drop and a fatal fall. However, there had been something growing in her ever since she laid eyes on Makeen. If he had looked at her and seen passion, she had looked at him and seen a kind of adventure that she had never thought possible.”
    “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.”
    “It's not safe,” he warned her, a bright light in his eyes. She knew then and there that he was teasing her, but she couldn't bring herself to care, not when there was an adventure awaiting.
    “Do you mean that the chains are rotted through or something?”
    He shook his head. “I had them replaced myself, and the tree has stood firm for years. No, I'm just saying that something like this, it is never entirely safe.”
    “Nothing is, my sheikh,” she said with a wide grin. “Let me at it.”
    “I'll go first,” he said, and for some reason, that made her prickle. He was going to go first? Of course he was the Sheikh. He was likely very used to getting his way. She narrowed her eyes, and came to a decision.
    “Of course,” she said, and if her exaggerated courtesy made him raise an eyebrow, he only shrugged and headed for the swing. She followed along, her hands folded in front of her, as demure a lady as ever existed. She watched with maidenly decorum as he checked the chains, and then she stepped back with him as he seated himself on the board seat and walked it backwards.
    “Are you ready?” she asked, and he smiled at her.
    “Don't look so smug, you're doing this next,” Makeen said warningly.
    As he leaned up on his toes to begin his swing, she laughed. “No, I'm not,” she grinned, and she hopped onto his lap.
    She heard Makeen's sudden cry, but there was nothing he could do to stop their forward momentum. With Olivia straddling his lap and clinging to his chest, he had no choice but to follow the swing through, letting it carry them out over the drop-off and straight into the sky.
    “You little fool!” he shouted, but all she could do was laugh, throwing her head back and opening her eyes to stare at the sky above.
    She wasn't sure how she could feel it, but there was something about the swing that let her feel how far the ground was below her, perhaps some trick of gravity or some kind of trick of the light. They sailed over the edge, and for a single moment, it felt as if she were falling. Then the swing caught them, sending them back towards the safety of the ground. When Olivia thought that Makeen would drag them back to earth, she held on to him tighter.
    “No,” she said pleadingly. “Please, again?”
    He laughed at her bravery, and with a shrug, he pumped his legs and sent them swinging up towards the sky again. This time they sailed even higher, and their laughs mingled together. It was the closest thing that Olivia had ever imagined to flying, and she was doing it wrapped around the body of the most incredible man that she had ever known.
    They flew out far over the drop-off, over and over again until they were both dizzy. Olivia could feel Makeen dragging them to a stop, and finally, they simply sat on the swing. When she pulled back to look at him, Makeen tilted his face forward, and they kissed, their bodies buzzing with a kind of pleasure she had never known.
    “We should get off the swing,” she whispered. “It … it can't be safe to sit here so close to the edge.”
    “You are absolutely the last person who should be saying one thing or another about safety,” he growled, but he stood with care,