Never Resist a Sheikh (International Bad Boys) (14 page)

“We will not discuss my brother,” he said, making his voice hard and cold.

But perhaps she didn’t hear the warning, because she asked instead, “Why not? Don’t you think that’s something I should know about?”

“All you need to know is that my brother was not a violent man. He was sick.”

“But what happened? I mean—”

“I said we will not discuss it,” he cut her off,
his tone as sharp as the blade he’d been practicing with. “If you are afraid, know this. I am not my brother and I will not hurt you.”

A frustrated look crossed her face. She glanced back down to the floor again for a moment, as if she was trying to decide something. Then she looked up at him, straightened her shoulders, and began to walk toward him.

Zakir stilled. There was a determined glint
in her eyes as she closed the distance between them, and this time she didn’t look away, holding his gaze as she got closer and closer.

A flush had risen in her cheeks and he couldn’t stop staring at her. At the way the cotton of her T-shirt pulled tight over her breasts. How the denim of her jeans clung to her slender thighs. And all he could think about was what he wanted to do to her.

“Stop.”
The sharp edge to the order echoed around the cavernous room.

And she came to an uncertain halt, watching him, those glittering silver eyes of hers seeing far, far too much. “What? What’s wrong?”

Abruptly he turned back to the cabinet so he didn’t have to look at her, unwilling to let her see the hunger in his eyes. Unwilling to give her the truth.

Training hadn’t helped. Even the mention of
Farid hadn’t been enough to hold this clawing desire at bay. His control was being slowly undermined by one small, redheaded westerner, and he had no idea why.

She couldn’t be here. She wasn’t safe around him.

The unsheathed blades in the cabinet gleamed, the light running across the sharp edges. Another subtle reminder, as if he needed one. Farid had used a ceremonial dagger to take Maysan’s
life. And all because she’d smiled at one of his guards. He was supposed to have gotten better, the imported drugs Zakir had gotten for him working so well that he’d almost been like his old self again.

Until love had changed him. Love had been the one factor Zakir hadn’t taken into account. If his brother hadn’t loved Maysan quite so much, she’d probably be alive and so would he.

Slowly, Zakir
picked up a dagger, looking down onto the polished steel blade. He’d killed with this. He probably would kill again. He’d always been a soldier at heart. A killer before he’d been a king.

“Get out.” His voice didn’t sound like his, rough as the sands of the deep desert. “Leave me.”

There was silence behind him.

“Why?” Felicity asked.

“I said, get out.” The dagger glittered in the light. Tension
crawled over his shoulders and down his spine, gathering tight inside him. The animal gathering itself to pounce.

“No. I’m not—”

“Get out!” It came out as a roar, the words echoing off the hard surfaces of the room and bouncing back. She needed to leave now before he did something both of them would regret.

Another silence behind him. And he caught the subtle scent of her, some kind of flower
with a hint of feminine musk. A key. To unlock the doors of the cage that had his hunger bound.

He whirled around, the dagger still in his hand, to find her standing right behind him now, only inches away, her gaze so sharp it pierced him right through.

“What’s wrong?” She demanded, completely disregarding the fact that he was several times bigger than her and infinitely more deadly, especially
while he was holding a dagger. “Why are you shouting at me? What did I do?”

She was too close. Far, far too close. And that scent of hers was weaving spells around him. Spells he wasn’t going to be able to resist.

Anger rose and he grasped it tight, using it to mask the desire that burned like acid inside him, eating away at him like the dry desert wind eats away at the rock.

“You are foolish,”
he said harshly and took a step toward her, closing the remaining distance between them. “You should listen when I speak. You are not safe around me. So when I tell you to go, you should go.”

He wanted her to back away, turn tail and run. But she didn’t. She held her ground instead, staring up at him, a fierce frown on her face. “Why?” she asked again. “Why aren’t I safe? You just told me you
wouldn’t hurt me.” Her gaze dropped to the dagger in his hand. “Are you going to stab me with that or something?”

She didn’t sound even the remotest bit afraid. Only curious. Foolish woman.

“No.” He threw the dagger away, the metal chiming on the stone as it slid across the floor. “I will do something much worse.”

She blinked, as if she’d only now just realized how close they were standing.
And her gaze widened, dropping slowly down the length of his body then back up again. A flush rose to her cheeks. “W-what’s worse?”

He should stop this. Step back. Walk away. But he didn’t. “
I
am.”

She was looking at his mouth, her eyes slowly darkening like they had on the terrace the night before. “Are you?” Her voice was husky too, taking on that soft, erotic quality that had gotten him so
hard before. “How?”

“You should leave, Felicity.” She had to, because God alone knew he could not.

Her throat moved and with obvious effort, she lifted her gaze to his. And for a second, he thought she’d seen sense and was going to do what he asked. Then she sealed her fate.

“No,” she said. Very clearly.

So he moved, looping one arm around her waist, bringing her hard against him. Gripping
her coppery red braid in one fist, he pulled her head back.

Then he kissed her. Hard.

F
elicity’s mind blanked
as his hand wrapped around her braid. As he pulled her head back and devoured her completely, his kiss full of dark heat and hunger. Taking her mouth like he owned her, as if she was a city he’d just conquered and was now intent on razing to the ground.

She’d wanted to get answers from him and maybe she’d been too blunt. But her curiosity had gotten
the better of her and she hadn’t been able to help herself. As soon as she’d mentioned his brother’s name, she’d seen something flash in his dark eyes. Pain and anger and what she thought was fear. And it hooked her. Made her want to know everything.

Made her stay when perhaps she should have done what he’d roared at her and gotten out while she could.

But she hadn’t. Because something had made
her stay. Not just curiosity but something else. Something hot.

He’d been shirtless and she’d been painfully aware of that from the moment Jamal had shown her into the room. Stripped to the waist and wearing only the familiar black combat pants, that massive sword in his hands. A tall, powerfully muscled figure shifting fluidly through a series of movements so graceful it had almost looked like
a dance. A lethal, deadly dance.

That had been the flashpoint, the ignition. The spark that had lit the hot, burning thing inside her. And she’d tried to push it to one side because it got in the way of her thinking and made her feel so horribly out of her depth.

But then he’d lost his temper, getting close to her and, by rights, she should have been afraid of him, so massively built and with
a dagger in his hand. Except she hadn’t been afraid. Only…fascinated by the sense of barely contained violence running through him like a subliminal hum. By the sharp obsidian of his eyes and the black flame burning in them.

He was beautiful, dangerous. And she hadn’t wanted to leave.

So she hadn’t and now she was trembling, that hot thing igniting into a conflagration that felt as if it was
searing her from the inside out. And it wasn’t enough. She wanted more.

Her mouth opened beneath his, letting his tongue push inside, exploring her, tasting her. And she was kissing him back, with no idea what she was doing; only that the flavor of him was so hot, spicy, and delicious, and she couldn’t stop herself.

His arm around her waist was so strong, so heavy, a manacle binding her to him,
while her fingers gripped tightly onto his powerful shoulders. Her heartbeat was louder than thunder in her head and so fast she thought she might pass out.

This was as deadly a dance as the moves he’d made with his sword. Because all there was under her hands was his skin. Smooth and slick with sweat, and so hot it felt like she’d put her hands on a heated element. It burned. He burned.

And
so did she.

The hand holding her braid pulled tighter, enough to cause a few pinpricks of pain, and yet that only seem to add more fuel the fire.

Her fingers dug into his shoulders, her body arching against his, desperate for something she didn’t quite have a name for. Desire had always seemed so abstract and faintly ridiculous before, but now… God, she couldn’t get enough.

He kissed her harder.
Taking and taking and taking. As hungry as he’d been last night. God, if he didn’t stop… What would happen? She’d be burned to ash.

“Zakir,” she gasped desperately, suddenly frightened. Not of him, but of what was taking place inside her, of the intensity of her own hunger. Of the ache down low between her thighs and the way her nipples seemed so exquisitely sensitive.

He didn’t reply, his mouth
trailing down her neck to her throat. Pressing there, tasting her skin, making her heart thump in a hard, fast beat, echoing in her ears.

Overwhelming her.

She was panting, her breathing loud and ragged in the silence of the room. Her breasts were pressed up hard against his chest, her fingers digging into his slick skin, and she was shaking so badly she thought she would shake herself apart.

Then he pushed one hand down beneath the waistband of her jeans, sliding his palm over one buttock at the same time as he gently bit down on one of the tendons of her neck. And all the remaining breath went out of her. She gasped aloud, the sound sliding into a moan as he exerted pressure, bringing her hips against, the long, hard length of his erection pressing against the seam of her jeans.

Pleasure shot like wildfire through her, so strong she felt dizzy with it.

“I told you I wasn’t safe.” His voice was a growl, his breath hot against her skin. “I told you that you should have gone. And now it’s too late.”

Too late? Too late for what?

But she couldn’t seem to form the words or even bring herself to care. Because that amazing, powerful brain of hers could only seem to think of
one thing.
More
.

Felicity closed her eyes, arching her back, blindly rolling her hips. Rocking against the tantalizing hard ridge pressing between her thighs.

He said something low and vicious in Arabic that she didn’t understand and then she was being lifted into his arms and carried over to one of the low couches beside the pool. Being laid on the soft cushions with him crouching over her,
his hands on either side of her head, black eyes staring down into hers.

The look on his face was pure predator, a lion finally having run down its prey and now ready to feast. “You will do as I say,” he said in a voice so deep and dark it sounded as if it had been dragged from the bottom of the ocean. “You will follow my orders as if I were God himself. Do you understand?”

Excitement lodged
in her chest, along with desire and a kind of trembling anticipation that made her breath get short and her heartbeat hammer in her head.

The lines of his dark, beautiful face were drawn tight with a hunger he made no attempt to hide and it fascinated her. Drew her. He was looking at her as if he wanted to eat her alive and that made her shake. Made her throat get tight with longing.

Was it
her doing that? Did she affect him that powerfully?

Why do you want to?

She didn’t know. But it was important. She wanted to be able to do to him what he was doing to her.

“What are you going to do?” She had to force out the words, her voice thick and hoarse.

“You know what I’m going to do.” He put out a hand, cupped her jaw, his thumb tracing the line of her lower lip.

Another shiver went
through her, the heat of his touch joining the wildfire already burning inside her. “You w-want me, Zakir?” Because she had to know, had to hear the words.

“You really have to ask me that? After last night?”

“But you could have any woman.”

His hand moved, his fingers trailing down her neck, his thumb resting in the hollow her throat, just above the frantic beat of her pulse. “No, I could not.
As you will have noticed, there are no other women. After Farid died and I became sheikh, the aristocratic families sent their daughters away. So they would not be forced to marry an Al-Nazari.”

Something tightened in her chest and it felt like pain. She wanted to say something sarcastic to protect herself, but all that came out was, “So I’m only convenient? Is that what you’re saying?”

His
hand spread, his fingers curling around her throat in a possessive hold that made her tremble and burn. That made her go weak with longing.