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  Tulip Princess

  Copyright © 2011 by Liz Crowe

  ISBN: 978-1-61333-163-7

  Cover art by Mina Carter

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

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  Tulip Princess

  A 1Night Stand Story

  by

  Liz Crowe

  Turkish Delights - Book 3

  ~DEDICATION~

  Benim iyi arkadaşım Krysia için.

  Her şey için teşekkürler!

  Turkish names, Terms and Pronunciation

  (Turkish is fairly phonetic)

  The Deniz Family (Deniz: Ocean)

  Emre (Em-Ray): “eldest brother” “passionate”

  Tarkan: “strong, “bold”

  Lale (Lah-Lay): “beautiful tulip” Tulips are indigenous to Turkey.

  They were imported to Europe via the Silk Road trading routes.

  Ayla (Eye-La): Light of the moon

  Aslan: Lion

  Other words:

  Evet: yes

  Seni seviyorum (Se-nee Se-vee-yo-rum): I love you

  Buyuk anne (Buh-yook ah-nay): Grandmother

  Anne (ah-nay): Mother

  Kiz kardes (Kiz kar-desh): sister

  Mas Allah (Mahsh ah-lah): Praise God

  o adelfós mou: Greek for “my brother.”

  The story of Troy, a city located in ancient Anatolia (now modern Turkey) and the Trojan War is a well-known legend. According to tradition, the conflict began after Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy, was given Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, by Aphrodite. Helen, the half-mortal daughter of Zeus, had already married Menelaus, the brother of Agamemnon and the King of Sparta.

  After Helen left Sparta with Paris, Menelaus summoned an expedition to go to Troy to win her back

  Troy was besieged by the Greeks for ten years, and several well-known events took place during the long and arduous conflict, including the death of Achilles after Paris fired an arrow into his heel and of Paris himself. The siege only ended after Odysseus, the King of Ithaca, had the idea of the wooden horse. The horse appeared as a gift to the Trojans, but Greek soldiers were hidden inside. When the horse entered Troy, the soldiers crept out, opened the gates of the city, and let the Greek army into the walled city. As a result, the city burned and the Trojans were massacred.

  Chapter One

  It was a night like so many others. Lights flashed, alcohol flowed, bodies groped and ground together in time to ear pounding house music. Lale sighed, bored as usual. She looked up at the ancient stone ceiling of yet another Constantinople Roman dungeon turned into exclusive nightclub. Hands reached out for her, touched her. She barely registered them. The X she’d popped had not helped. Her mouth tasted sour from too many nights of drinking. Her feet hurt in the morbidly expensive shoes she’d bought that day. The strange sensation of tears prickled behind her eyes.

  “Hey!” her friend, Ayshe, hollered in her ear. The shit-faced drunk girl hung onto some Euro-trash German who had grabbed Lale’s ass before turning around to bite on her friend’s neck. She sighed and flicked her new tongue piercing against her lower teeth. It took some getting used to, that sensation of something stuck in her mouth all the time. Her friend started speaking in rapid-fire Turkish. Lale rolled her eyes.

  “English, you slut,” she yelled into Ayshe’s ear. “Or French.” The disgusting Kraut leered down Lale’s cleavage. She shoved his large blond head away. The Istanbul club scene had entirely too many Germans. But she glanced over to the knot of men who’d been eyeballing her for an hour and smiled. Might as well get something out of this boring week night. She sauntered over to them and slipped between two of the taller bodies.

  “So,” a voice called over the din, “You’re from here, right?”

  Ah, Americans. So deliciously naïve. She targeted the handsomest of the group and batted her lashes, thickening her Turkish accent. “Yes, I am. I am an Istanbulu—born and raised in this city. Oh, thank you very much.” She accepted the drink put in front of her on the tall table. She never had to buy her own drinks in places like this. She sighed and picked out the one she wanted and zeroed in on him. Shouldn’t take long. He would have no idea what hit him other than five-foot-seven inches of sexy local, a quick fuck and a kiss good bye. It was…how did Caleb always say it? “Like shooting fish in a barrel.” Too damn easy.

  She looked up at the ceiling once more and tried not to think about Caleb. That led too quickly to thoughts of her beloved brother. The only one in her family who ever really loved her. Well, maybe besides her other brother’s wife, Elle, the glamorous American businesswoman who had stolen Emre’s heart and taken him away to America.

  Maybe she’d get her hood pierced, she mused, as the sexy American lowered his forgettable lips to hers. She curved into him, her body making promises she intended to deliver. Anything to ease the ache in her body and the emptiness in her soul.

  “Come with me.” She took his large hand and led him to the back of the club. She knew from direct experience that there were hidden alcoves for exactly the sort of activity she wanted to engage in. Her body was ready. He’d do.

  “Condom?” she asked after a bit of tongue acrobatics, reaching into her purse for her stash. The man took it, rolled it down over his pretty impressive rod and, shoved her back against the wall. She tasted tobacco, beer, and her own sex where he’d licked her to a juicy climax. Humming in her throat, she took his thrusts and gripped his neck. “Harder, damn you.”

  The man grunted and yanked her leg up. She should have taken his height into account. He bent his legs and pressed her up higher. She wrapped her arms around his neck, tilted her hips, and ground her needy clit into the man’s pubic bone. He groaned; his hips moved faster. The heady, familiar sensation of orgasm loomed on the horizon. But as she started to enjoy it, he thrust hard one last time and came, the dopey look on his all-American face a dead giveaway.

  He leaned in to kiss her, but she turned her head. “Wow.” He gasped as she lifted herself off of his cock and pushed him away. “Um, sorry. I, well, I don’t usually….” His face reddened. She appraised him as she readjusted her skirt. He might do for another go. But boredom overtook her again. And thirst. She grabbed his hand after he zipped himself back up.

  “Let’s go, lover boy. I want to dance some more.”

  She reentered the fray, caught Ayshe’s eye and waved, letting her friend know she’d returned. They had a pact to never let the other go anywhere alone. It worked, because usually one or the other of them was drunk, high or tripping so hard the other one had to watch out for her. The X finally hit her, and she laughed, kissed the man on the mouth in front of his gawking friends, and dragged him out on the dance floor.

  They were all lame, really, but
at that point in the night she no longer cared. Young, gorgeous, rich, with all eyes on her as she shook her hips around the dance floor, Lale laughed out loud. Fuck them. Fuck all of them. The music got louder. The heaving, sweaty room became bearable. By the time Ayshe had yanked on her hair so hard, she screamed in pain; she’d been tripping for at least twenty minutes. The blessed white noise of the drug, five straight vodkas, and the quivering in her thighs from earlier exertions with the foreigner made her gloriously oblivious. It had become the only way she didn’t get pissed off at everyone around her, or break down in tears.

  “Ow! Shit!” She glared at her friend, but her brain wouldn’t make a connection. Then, Ayshe’s annoying German friend finally tugged her arm and led her off the dance floor. Her lovely fuck buddy American had taken a powder. Lale whirled on her friend. “What? What do you want? Leave me alone!” She clenched her fists and attempted to focus.

  “Metin is here,” Ayshe mouthed in Turkish. She pointed toward the door. Startled, she looked over her shoulder. Sure enough. Her sixty-something driver, whom she’d given the night off, glowered around the room. An irreligious but very traditional Turk, the man oozed disapproval from across the room. Well-bred Turkish young ladies did not act like her.

  Fuck. What now?

  She muscled her way through the crowd, trying like hell to calm her heartbeat and get her eyes to focus. There could be only one reason for it. Yet another crisis at home. Some bullshit dilemma out in the boonies with her father’s family or…Lale stopped dead in her tracks as Metin’s angry eyes found her. He gestured with one finger. She resisted the urge to tell him to fuck himself and followed him out into the warm Istanbul night.

  “Your father needs you home now.”

  She lit a cigarette while he started the Mercedes. His disapproving frown deepened, but she’d be damned if she cared. “So, what is the problem?” she said through a haze of smoke.

  “Emre. Mrs. Emre, she is….”

  She gripped the armrest at the sound of her sister-in-law’s name. Elle’s second child wasn’t due for another two or three weeks.

  “I don’t know for sure.” Metin sped through the nighttime traffic, and within fifteen minutes, they were in front of her family’s home overlooking a curve in the Bosporus. She sighed, chewed a breath mint and stomped up to the massive double doors. Her throat tightened as she put a hand on the wrought iron doorknob—the same reaction she got every time she came home, ever since Tarkan’s funeral, when her life went to shit.

  Fixing her usual nonchalant-slash-bored look in place, she pushed it open. The sounds of her grandmother’s keening in the main room pierced her between the eyes. She walked in, sat down, and put an arm around the old woman. The same way she had as they watched the drama in Ankara, the day of the terrorist attack. The day her brother died. She stared at her father. His anger was palpable, but what else was new? All she ever got from him anymore seemed wrapped in a thick blanket of fury. She would never measure up. The old woman’s tears dripped onto Lale’s arm.

  “It’s Elle,” he said, and took a deep breath.

  “What? God, will you please spare me the dramatic pauses?” Her low voice barely registered in her own ears. Her heart clenched in utter terror at his next words.

  “She is gravely ill. The baby came and there is a problem.” Lale sighed and looked around for her mother. The aggravation she always had around her drowned out by Lale’s need to hear exactly what had happened. As if conjured, her mother walked in from the balcony. She balanced a delicate tulip-shaped glass off tea on a small plate. Her eyes were red and puffy.

  “Anne?” She used the familiar Turkish in place of her recently affected British “Mummy” for a change. Her mother held out a hand. She stood, not taking it. “What happened? Is the baby okay?” Nausea rose in her throat at the thought of yet another family tragedy to absorb.

  “Emre and Elle have a beautiful, strong son,” her American-born mother said calmly in English. “Aslan. Our lion.”

  Lale rolled her eyes. “Yes, go on. What about Elle?”

  “They had to do an emergency operation. Elle’s blood pressure had shot up, and she had been having chest pains in the night.”

  “When?” She winced, hearing the high squeak of panic in her voice.

  “Monday night.” She calculated the three-day lag. Why were they only just now getting this news?

  “Emre has been busy at the hospital. He called a couple of hours ago. Elle is stable but still in intensive care. Her heart stopped while they were taking the baby out. They had to revive her.”

  Lale put her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes. Images of the lovely, strong American woman her brother had married flitted through her brain. Nearly forty-five now, she’d brushed off everyone’s obsessive concern that the baby would have problems. Apparently, they had all worried about the wrong person.

  “The baby, he is…okay?”

  Her mother smiled. “He is perfect. So beautiful. Come see the picture on the computer.” But Lale slumped back on the leather couch. Her heart pounded as the room started to spin. As always, her eyes fell on the large image of her with Tarkan and his lover, Caleb. Tarkan and Emre were identical twins, but two men could not have been more different in temperament. Tarkan had been calm, quiet, a better listener. Emre had been the “in charge” sibling from the start, bossy, demanding and authoritative. She walked over to the shelf that held all of the wedding memories. Tears slipped from her eyes as she touched the image of her beloved dead brother.

  Her grandmother laid a hand on her shoulder. Lale wiped the tears away, anger replacing the horrible sadness she lived with daily.

  “Oh, my darling girl,” the ancient woman croaked in Turkish. “He is never far from us, our Tarkan.” The woman plucked the photo from the shelf and held it to her bosom. “As long as we continue to love him, he is here, with us.”

  Lale stalked over to the tea set on the sideboard. She poured herself a small glass and gulped it down. The bitter liquid scorched her throat. “Buyuk anne,” she said, again using the formal Turkish for Grandmother. “Tarkan is dead. He’s gone. He used to be the best fucking thing about this family until he decided to play soldier. Now he will never come back.”

  The old woman leveled wide blue eyes at her. Nothing made Lale feel as small as that stare could.

  “Young lady, you will not use that language in my house. Our Tarkan did his duty, served his country, a brave soldier.”

  Lale scoffed, throwing off the grandmother guilt like a discarded sweater. Her father walked in and poured himself a glass of the tea, and one for his mother. He glared at her. She stuck out her tongue at him, and he looked his full sixty years as he eased into a large chair.

  “Daughter.” His gravelly voice made her squirm, knowing what had to come next. “Buyuk anne is right. Watch your foul tongue.”

  Her mother returned with printouts of the new little Deniz family member. Lale tried not to like him. She failed. His small, newborn face was beautiful, like her mother had said. His hands were clenched in fists, his legs drawn up as if he were still squished inside Elle’s belly. His amazing blue eyes stared right at the camera. All babies started out with blue eyes, but his would likely fade to green, like his sister’s, like Elle’s. The sob that burst from her frightened everyone in the room, including herself.

  Her mother sat and held her close, crooning Turkish nonsense words. Like she’d done the day Lale had come in from school to the news that Tarkan had been killed in a burst of senseless violence. She clutched her mother’s arm and let everything go, cried like a child for several minutes. By the time the outburst reduced to sniffles and hiccups, rage had settled around her heart once again.

  She twisted out of her mother’s embrace and stomped into the kitchen, seeking the whiskey always hidden in a cabinet. The family held enough of her mother’s American heritage not to ban alcohol from the house like many did. She found it, poured all four of them a shot, and brought them back into
the living room. They took the small glasses without a word. She gulped hers and plunked the glass down.

  “So, what now?”

  Her parents gave each other a look. Lale crossed her arms, prepared for whatever huge announcement she sensed on the Deniz family horizon.

  “Elle is going to be in the hospital for at least another two weeks, and may have to undergo more surgery. They will either install a pacemaker or something else equally drastic.” Her mother passed a shaking hand over her eyes. Lale winced. The woman may be the bane of her existence lately, but she’d been through a lot in the last six years. One son admits he is gay and is ‘married’ to his American lover. The other one falls in love with a woman fifteen years his senior, marries her in a lavish ceremony at their family’s home down in Antalya, and moves to California.

  Then the gay son joins the military in order to do their family’s duty to the Turkish Republic as required. Within weeks of his release and a planned moved to America with his partner, he was blown to smithereens in the line of duty. They had buried a mostly empty box where his body should have been. Some would say “payback is hell” with regard to her parent’s own famously star-crossed history. But Lale put no stock in such sappy romanticism.

  With Tarkan gone and Caleb out of their lives, her own dream of moving to California for college shattered into a million pieces. No way were her parents going to let her move. So she stayed here, miserable, just getting by at Istanbul University.

  She’d responded by cutting her hair short, getting two tattoos, three piercings, partying like every night could be her last, and fucking every thing with a cock and a decent body. And now…this.

  Sliding down the wall, she rested her head on her arms. She already had the beginnings of what promised to be a stellar hangover. Her mother had come to stand at her father’s shoulder. Lale glared at them through the tangle of her dark hair.