EXCERPT/GIVEAWAY: Sold to the Sheikh by Chloe Cox

Love a good Sheikh book but can never find one that has a little bit of a kinkier edge? I commonly find all my Shiekh's from Harlequin authors, but this week I hope to not only bring you some great ones from that publisher, but others as well. Here is one you can try that adds BDSM to the contemporary mix.

Sold to the Sheikh
(Club Volare #1)

by Chloe Cox

Book Blurb

Stella Spencer is grateful for any job she can get after her divorce, even if it's at her friend's exclusive BDSM club. And Club Volare proves the perfect place to hide while she mends a shattered heart--until she interrupts an auction scene, and the powerful Sheikh Bashir al Aziz bin Said decides that Stella is the woman that he wants.

At Club Volare for one last wild weekend before his family requires him to settle down, Sheikh Bashir doesn't expect to find a woman he can trust, or a woman who challenges him. But Stella Spencer is a challenge, all right: both vulnerable and guarded, beautiful and insecure, and a closet submissive. Only, Bashir is convinced she's hiding something.

Stella is afraid to open her heart to love again after the way she's been hurt, but Sheikh Bashir wants to be the Dom to show her who she truly is--and Sheikh Bashir always gets what he wants.

“I said: take off your dress, Stella. Now.”

Sheikh Bashir’s voice filled the room like a thunderclap, penetrating Stella’s mind with the sudden violence of a force of nature. She very nearly actually did it. She’d nearly taken off her dress just because he’d told her to. She came back to herself, her thumbs already hooked under the straps of her dress, and blinked.

What the hell was that? She’d never felt so weak. I have my safeword. I can always say the safeword.

Somehow, that didn’t help. She didn’t fear Sheikh Bashir, even as he arose from the couch with a lazy, predatory grace. She feared her own apparent loss of self-control. What kind of person nearly undresses just because some guy with the voice of God tells her to? What was happening to her?

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I told you I’m not…I’m not familiar with these kinds of things. I’m sorry. I think this was mistake, Sheikh Bashir, I really do.”

“I grow weary of hearing you say that, Ms. Spencer,” he said, and a wry smile played across those soft lips. “It’s almost as if you do not trust my judgment.”

Stella knew there was something wrong with that argument, but she was having trouble thinking logically. The Sheikh had risen to his full height and had removed his tailored grey suit jacket, tossing it carelessly on the sofa. What was left was an obvious wall of hard muscle under a fitted white, collared shirt, which was tucked crisply into a pair of grey suit slacks.

Maybe he plays polo, Stella thought weakly. She could see the Sheikh fiercely driving a horse around a pitch. Oh God, what an idiotic thing to think about! You don’t know anything about polo! Get a hold of yourself, Spencer.

But she was frozen to the spot, as though if she stayed perfectly still, maybe Sheikh Bashir would just forget about her. Instead, he came very, very close. Stella remembered the heat of his body from when he’d grabbed her, only a few moments ago in Lola’s office, and looked furiously at the floor.

He said, “But it is more offensive to me that you seem to expect me not to trust my own judgment, too.” He reached out and touched the side of her cheek with the back of his hand. “I know what I see before me. You make it quite plain.”

Suddenly, Stella was furious. She’d been torturing herself nightly over what other people must see when they looked at her, what led them to treat her the way that they did, and this stranger had the temerity to just…announce that he knew? Better than she did?

“Oh, really?” Stella said, and let the sarcasm fly. She finally looked up to see that he was still smiling. “You think you know me better than I know myself?”

“Apparently.”

Stella was not prepared for that.

“But perhaps you need to be convinced,” the Sheikh continued, and stepped quickly behind her, resting his large hands on her shoulders. Stella was afraid to move. Not because of what might happen, but because she might miss the feel of him behind her, and she wasn’t quite ready for that, either.

Maybe that’s the problem, Stella thought to herself. I’ve been so afraid of what might happen, I’ve stopped moving. She felt something inside twist, and the kaleidoscope of jumbled emotions that she’d become accustomed to carrying around with her fell into a kind of focus. The picture didn’t make sense, exactly, but it was a picture now. She was afraid. She had stopped moving. She’d been hiding.

And this stranger could see that.

If it hadn’t been for his warm hands massaging her shoulders, Stella was certain she would’ve begun to shake. She wasn’t sure she could handle whatever he had planned.

“Who do you think you are,” she said, and she could not keep the tremble out of her voice, “to talk to people this way?”

The Sheikh’s big hands spun her around easily, and he caught her around the waist with his iron arm. His other hand moved upward to cradle her face—and to make sure she looked at him while he spoke to her.

“I am Sheikh Bashir al Aziz bin Said of Ras al Manas,” he said with unerring calm, “though that has little to do with my ability to talk to you this way, or my ability to recognize you for what you are.”

His black eyes softened and searched her face. Stella was completely at a loss for words, unable to answer him. Instead, she felt her pulse in her neck, her fingers, and, most of all, in her pussy, thudding hot and hard against her flesh.

“I swear, on my honor, I will not hurt you,” he said softly. “Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” Stella heard herself say. It didn’t make any sense. But she did believe him. She believed him utterly.

His grip around her waist tightened and he pulled her closer. Stella felt her logic, her rationality, her willpower begin to drain away. Her body hadn’t felt this way except during dreams, the kind that woke her with an orgasm and sent her searching for her vibrator. Only this was real.

The Sheikh was still smiling.

“You very nearly obeyed my command to take off your dress. You only just met me, Ms. Spencer, and you did not even know my full name, yet you very nearly undressed when I commanded you to do so. Don’t you think that’s unusual?”

Yes, it’s unusual, Stella thought. It’s freaking insane. She thought back to her ex, Robert: she’d never “obeyed” him in any sense of the word, though he’d never issued a command like that, either. And she wouldn’t have obeyed him even if he had, just on principle. The idea of Robert ordering her to do anything was laughable.

“I really have no idea,” she managed to say.

“Now you’re lying,” the Sheikh said, flashing his bright, white teeth. “I will be lenient now, but if you lie to me in the future…”

He pressed his thumb into her cheek, let his hand fall down the skin of her neck, smoothed his fingers over her bare shoulder, before grabbing the back of her head with sudden force. His lips curled in a sensual smile.

“You will be punished.”

Stella shivered. How could that sound like something she wanted? But her body didn’t lie.

“Listen,” she stammered. “I don’t know what kind of person you think I am—”

He let her go, almost propelling her away from him, and turned toward the bar. Stella loathed to admit that she immediately missed the feel of him, but she did. And she hated that she waited breathlessly for him to speak, but she did that too.

When he finally spoke, he did so with exaggerated patience.

He said, “You signed a contract. I think that you did this because you wanted to, even if you are unable to admit that to yourself. And I think that you are standing here because you are tired of being afraid of the things that you want.”

He turned around, easily stirring the ice in a cool looking drink, and looked at her with an expression of almost bored confidence. She was too stunned to respond. She wasn’t used to sexy, dominant Sheikhs showing up out of nowhere and reading her mind.

“It’s not really all that unusual to be afraid of what you want, Ms. Spencer,” he went on. “But it is, perhaps, unusual to have the courage to face that fear.”

He leaned back against the bar, and looked her up and down. The heat on her body tracked the path of his eyes, as though he were actually touching her. I might as well be naked, she thought wildly. I might as well…

“And now, the time for introductions is over,” he said, and the smile faded from his face. His eyes flashed, and a muscle in his jaw twitched once, twice.

“Take off your dress,” he commanded.

Startled, as if waking from a nap, Stella felt her fingers fumble with the straps, felt her hips wriggle, felt her dress fall, and looked down to find that she’d obeyed an order.

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