Never Resist a Sheikh (International Bad Boys) (12 page)

And her mouth, holy God, her mouth. It opened beneath his, the heat and the taste of her hitting him
like he’d been struck over the head with the hilt of his own sword.

The animal inside him rushed its cage, rattling it, bending the bars. Wanting to tear the robes from her body, bend her over the bench, push inside her, take her hard and fast with one hand buried in her hair till they were both screaming.

He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. That kind of loss of control led to madness. Led to a bridal
bed covered in blood and a woman dead.

She is not strong. You will break her.

Because that was the way with the Al-Nazari. They broke things they shouldn’t.

But, oh, the taste of her, the heat of that lovely mouth. It had been so long since he’d kissed a woman and he’d forgotten that—the sweetness. It made him kiss her harder, deeper, ruthless and hungry with it, devouring her like a lion devours
its prey.

Her hands were gripping him tighter, her whole body trembling. Then she touched her tongue to his, a tentative, cautious response, and something exploded through him, desire flaring like a bonfire.

And he knew in that moment he’d been a fool. He’d overestimated himself. Overestimated his ability to resist.

You are weak. Like Farid was weak.

With a force of will that shouldn’t have
been as great as it was, Zakir released her, shoving himself away, his heartbeat like thunder in his head, the need to take her wildfire in his blood.

She stumbled as he stepped away, her mouth open in shock, her eyes wide. “Z-Zakir?” Her voice was ragged. A question he did not know the answer to.

The only thing he did know was being near her right now was impossible.

So he turned and without
a word, he strode away.

F
elicity woke to
the sound of someone knocking hard on the door. She rolled over, pulled the blankets over her head and tried to snuggle back down. Perhaps if she just ignored them they’d go away.

But they didn’t.

And as she let out an annoyed breath and opened her eyes, memory began to come back to her.

She wasn’t at home in New York. She was in a room, in a medieval stone
fortress of a palace. She was a prisoner of the sheikh of Al-Shakhra who considered her his bride prize.

And last night she’d been presented to his court only to be insulted by lumps of dirt given instead of gifts, and then had wine spilled all over her. And then Zakir had taken her out onto that terrace where he’d stripped of her wine-soaked robes, wrapped her in black cotton, and then…

Felicity
flung back the quilt and sat bolt upright, her heart suddenly slamming hard against her breastbone. No, she didn’t want to think about what had happened after that. Not at all.

Yes, you do.

The first ever kiss she’d actually lost herself in and it had come from the man who’d kidnapped her. Who’d put his hands in her hair and pulled her head back, held her with such casual mastery and yet such
gentleness.

She’d been so out of her depth, awash with anger from what had happened in the stone hall, an anger that had only seemed to intensify the strange fascination she had for Zakir. And not just the fascination but the attraction, too.

Such a complex mix of emotions, she’d had no idea how to deal with them.

Until he’d offered to show her.

He’d looked at her like he wanted to eat her
alive and a small, secret part of her had loved it, absorbing his attention like a thirsty plant absorbs rain. And he seemed to know exactly what to say to her, the perfect lure to her hungry mind.

Close your eyes. I will show you something new.

And she’d done…exactly what he said.

The knocking on her door became more forceful, jolting her. Pushing the thoughts of the night before out of her
head, Felicity slid out of the low bed and scrabbled around for some clothes.

When Zakir had stalked off the night before, he hadn’t left her totally alone. A couple of minutes after he’d gone, Jamal had found her and escorted her back to her rooms. She couldn’t even remember returning, or stripping off the black cotton of the robe Zakir had wound around her. Or even falling into her bed.

The
only thing clear to her was that her mouth burned. And someone had turned a blowtorch on her skin, taking off the entire outer layer, leaving her raw and sensitized, conscious of every movement her body made, every item of clothing she wore. She couldn’t stop thinking about Zakir’s hand around her throat, the heat of it. Or the feel of his mouth, the gentle pressure of his teeth. The possessive
grip of his fingers in her hair.

That kiss…

The hammering on the door had stopped and she heard the sound of someone trying to open it.

No. No more thoughts about that damn kiss.

After scrambling into her clothes, she finally went to the door and pulled it open. Only to find Jamal standing there looking irritated.

“I am to escort you to his majesty’s office,” he said shortly.

Felicity pushed
her hands into the pockets of her jeans, gazing warily at him. “Why?”

“His highness is fulfilling his promise to you,” Jamal said, folding his arms.

“Promise? What—” And then she remembered. She’d told him she’d agree to be presented at his court, if he’d let her make the phone calls she needed. “Ah, okay then.” She gave Jamal a narrow look. “How many calls can I have?”

“As many as you need
to handle your business and inform your family and friends that you are well.”

“And I guess they’re not going to be private calls?”

“No.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and went out the door in a swirl of robes. Clearly this was her cue to follow.

This time the walk down the medieval corridors wasn’t as long as to the sheikh’s training room. They passed by narrow windows that gave
glimpses out over the dry valley and the glittering city at the bottom of it, and more sweeping stairs that led out onto wider galleries. There was more palace staff around, silent men and women in traditional robes, moving with purpose here and there. A few of them cast glances at Felicity, but unlike the night before, she didn’t get the feeling they were hostile, merely curious.

She took a
breath, trying to calm herself, trying to think about how she was going to handle these calls and what she would say. She wasn’t going to be able to say much if Jamal was there watching her.

Eventually Jamal stopped in front of a heavy wooden door and pushed it open.

The room inside wasn’t particularly large, but it was furnished with spartan simplicity. A heavy, antique-looking desk of some
kind of dark wood stood over by one of the narrow windows, a surprisingly modern-looking computer monitor sitting on the top of it. There was a shelving unit along one wall made out of the same dark wood as the desk, with a few books neatly shelved on it and not much else. There were no pictures on the walls and no rugs on the floors. It was bare, utilitarian. The office of a general, rather than
a king.

Jamal gestured to the sleek, modern-looking phone unit that also sat on that bare desk. “You may call whom you wish. But be aware that should you make any attempt at asking for help or sending coded messages, I will end all calls instantly.”

Felicity moved over the desk, giving him a surreptitious glance. Perhaps she could get out some kind of message without him knowing? Even a quick
scream down the phone, maybe?

His dark eyes stared back at her, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, and he moved his hand suggestively onto the hilt of his sword. Okay, then. Maybe screaming for help wouldn’t be the best idea.

So what to do? She couldn’t tell anyone where she was, that she hadn’t been so irresponsible as to go on a sudden sightseeing tour of the desert instead of attending
an important meeting. That she’d actually been captured by a sheikh and was now being held prisoner. She couldn’t even see if she could get her Al-Harahan meeting rescheduled because she had no idea how long it would take her to get out of here.

The people at Red Star would probably be frantic with worry, especially if the Al-Harahan deal had fallen through. They’d know she wouldn’t have gone
sightseeing…

Think, Felicity.

Okay, well, there was only one option. Her company needed a deal of some kind which meant that if she couldn’t get it from Al-Harah, then she’d get it from this sheikh. From Al-Shakhra.

This was a business opportunity and she needed to treat it like one. After all, she had the ear of a king. A king who needed her software and her expertise. She might even be able
to convince him to change his mind about the whole marriage thing, too. Oh, yes, and let her go when the time came.

Jamal picked up the phone. “The number,” he said brusquely. “I will dial for you.”

He really wasn’t taking any chances, was he? She gave him the number of her PA and he punched it in before handing her the receiver. And pretty soon, Charley’s voice came down the line, so familiar
Felicity almost wanted to cry.

But she pulled herself together, dealing with Charley’s shock and surprise at hearing from her. She kept it short and sweet, deflecting her PA’s questions and asking him to forward her apologies Al-Harahan government. Then, keeping the specifics vague, she told Charley not to worry, that she was currently following up an interesting and potentially even more lucrative
new opportunity for Red Star and the negotiations were at a ‘delicate’ stage, but she’d be in touch once things were finalized.

She ended the call quickly after that, before Charley could ask any more questions.

“Satisfied?” She glared at Jamal.

“You may call your family,” he said, expressionless.

She hadn’t spoken to her parents for years. They didn’t even know she was in the Middle East,
let alone that she’d suddenly gone off on a sightseeing trip. Not that they’d be interested anyway. “No, I’m good.”

A faint frown creased his brow then was gone. “Very well. His majesty also suggested you may wish to visit the royal archives. There is much you need to learn about our country.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say she didn’t need to learn anything since she wouldn’t be here
long enough, but she swallowed it back. If she was going to treat this as an unexpected business opportunity, then learning a bit more about Al-Shakhra wasn’t a bad idea.

She went silently with Jamal as he led her down some more corridors, taking her this time into a much larger room packed with book-lined bookshelves and cabinets of lots of different sizes. There was a desk near one of the shelves,
obviously there for reading or working at. It reminded her of a very old-fashioned, public library, perhaps one from fifty years ago.

“Most of the material here is in Arabic,” Jamal said, then gestured to one of the cabinets. “But over there we have some records in English.” He gave her a clearly disapproving glance. “Unless you wish to return to your rooms?”

Perhaps that’s what he expected
her to do. In which case, she wouldn’t. She’d sit down here and she’d damn well familiarize herself. “Actually, no,” she replied. “I think I might sit here and learn a bit more about your country.”

If he was surprised he didn’t show it, merely inclining his head.

“Excellent.” Felicity gave him a sly smile. “In that case, you’d better show me how to find stuff here. I’m used to just entering
a search into Google.”

His lip curled fractionally. Without a word, he pointed to one of the cabinets then folded his arms, clearly intending to stay here for the duration and not happy about it.

“You could wait outside, you know,” she said, uncomfortable with the idea of Jamal looming over her while she read. “It’s not like I’m going to escape from here or anything.”

He gave her an enigmatic
look, grunted, then turned on his heel and went out, shutting the door firmly behind him.

After he’d gone, Felicity went over to the cabinet and pulled out one of the filing boxes. She couldn’t read the Arabic label on the side so she opened it and glanced inside. The contents appeared to be a stack of newspapers.

Curious, she carried the box over to the desk and sat down to leaf through them.
And blinked as she did so. They seemed to be all about one thing, lurid headlines detailing what looked like the murder/suicide of the previous sheikh and his sheikha two years earlier.

She frowned, leafing through more of the newspapers. This was all familiar, in fact, there had been a bit in the media about it, now that she remembered. The ruling sheikh was found dead the morning after his
wedding, with his new bride dead beside him. It had been determined the sheikh had killed his new wife then had killed himself. A tragedy for everyone, including the country itself.

Fascinated, she kept reading. Only to come to a stop at the mention of a name in one of the newspapers. Zakir. Who had found them. Who, as the younger brother, had taken over the throne after Farid’s death.

She remembered
suddenly the breakfast they’d had a few days earlier, when she’d asked him about being a soldier before being a king and he’d changed the subject.