The Sheik's Beautiful Intruder (The Friendship Series) (5 page)

As his mind went through what she would have endured, without his knowledge, the admiration for her audacity diminished and his fury took over.  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, calling out to her and daring her to try to get away from him.  Amazingly, she didn’t immediately show herself and he grew impatient as he waited for the woman to come out from her hiding place behind the stone wall.

Nikki bit her lip and clenched her eyes closed, unable to believe that she’d actually been caught.  But the men bearing down on her from all directions with machine guns pointed at her were a pretty good sign that she had lost her stealth status. 

With a sigh, she lifted her hands and stood up, turning to face Nazar with wary, nervous eyes.  If those eyes had been powerful at the press conference several days ago, that was nothing compared to her reaction to his gaze at the current moment.  Or maybe it was all the guns pointing at her that had her trembling, feeling like her knees might give out on her at any moment. 

Nazar stormed towards her, raising a hand once again when his guards, nervous about her presence and the fact that they’d been unable to stop her from entering, approached as well.  “Stay back and lower your weapons!” he commanded. 

Turning back to Nikki, he glared at her with his hands on his hips.  “Come here!” he told her, the fury coming through his voice like a knife. 

Nikki considered her options.  Seeing the cold wrath in those black eyes, she looked towards the guards with the machine guns and actually considered that they might be less dangerous at this point.  “No,” she called back and watched with increasing fascination as Nazar actually became angrier.  She thought she might actually see steam rising from the top of his head, but didn’t mention that.  Nor did she smile at the vision of the top of his head exploding off like in cartoons. 

Shrinking back, she took several steps in the opposite direction but froze when the guns went up again, all of them pointing in her direction.

“Don’t you dare fire at her!” he yelled.  “I’ll handle this!” 

There was a small argument in Arabic between Nazar and the man standing behind him, but Nikki breathed a sigh of relief when the guys in black lowered their machine guns. 

“Return to your posts!” he told each and every one of them.

Nikki didn’t want a translation of the argument he’d just won with the man behind him.  But the man holstered his pistol and stepped back, tossing out one more glare in her direction before resuming his vigil behind Nazar. 

When the man stepped back, Nazar turned to face her once again, his eyes shooting daggers at her and she quaked even while her tennis shoes seemed to be melting into the stone floor beneath her feet from the incredible heat of the sun.  “Nikki, so help me if you don’t get over here this instant, I might just let the guards have their way and toss you into a prison cell.”

Nikki cringed at his words and she took a step forward, but then stopped. 

“Where’s Brianna!” she challenged him.  “If you’ll just let my friend go, I’ll be out of here and you’ll never have to see me again.”

Nazar gritted his teeth.  Never in his life had he ever felt this way.  He prided himself on his cool, controlled temperament but there was something about this woman that pushed him beyond irritation and annoyance.  She fired him up and not always in a good way.  “Nikki, get your little butt over here, right now!”

He almost burst out laughing when the obnoxious, adorable woman actually turned around as if she were trying to see if her butt was small or otherwise.  How could she create such volatile emotions in him from such a short acquaintance?  But from the moment he’d seen her from the podium in Washington, D.C., he’d known this woman would be different.  She’d gotten under his skin with her pretty blue eyes and her lush, sexy figure.  But this escapade really was beyond belief.  Not that she understood the danger she was in!  One moment he was ready to turn her over his knee and spank her until she had some common sense and promised never to put her life in danger like this and the next, he wanted to chuckle at her actions and kiss her until she couldn’t speak anymore. 

Instead, he glared at her until, visibly shaking, she walked over to stand directly in front of him.  “How did you get in here?” he demanded in a low growl.  He’d had his security team scouring her home and work areas, trying to find her knowing that she wasn’t going to show for their dinner.  He’d almost fired his body guards when he found out that the one woman who had distracted him so completely had simply walked away from him and hadn’t been followed.  He’d been furious to be denied her company; he could still feel her skin under his fingertips, could still remember the anticipation of what she might taste like.  If he had been clearer about his intentions that afternoon, the past few sleepless nights might have been completely different.  Or he might have just had sleepless nights for a completely different reason. 

Nikki licked her lips and looked around, painfully aware of all the very angry, probably embarrassed palace guards and body guards.  “Well, it wasn’t all that difficult,” she whispered, leaning forward slightly and glancing to her right and left.

Nazar wasn’t sure what to say to that.  People were killed trying to enter the palace grounds.  And here she was – standing in front of him with the sun shooting auburn sparks off of her brown tresses – telling him that it wasn’t very hard for an unauthorized person to enter the compound. 

Since he was having trouble forming words with the image of her bullet ridden body in his mind, he grabbed her arm and dragged her towards the palace where they could have some privacy.  Unfortunately, the obviously fearless woman didn’t understand the danger she was in.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Nikki demanded, pulling back and glaring up at him.  “I’m not going anywhere with you!”

He spun around and glared down at her, leaving almost no space between their bodies.  “Nikki, you either walk into this building with me where we can discuss this latest insanity on your part in private, or I toss you over my shoulder and bring you to my bedroom where I spank you for putting yourself in such horrific danger.”

She pulled back slightly, but that didn’t help stop his fulminating glare.  “I’ll go, but you don’t have to drag me,” she said in an angry whisper, not wanting any more of their arguments to be overheard by the guards that were now surrounding the two of them. 

“That is certainly up for debate,” he came right back.  But instead of grabbing her arm, he stepped back and, with a sweeping gesture, allowed her to precede him into the air conditioned palace.  “This way,” he said when she kept going forward instead of turning in the direction of his private suite.

Just before he was about to close the doors, he turned to his body guard.  “Find out how she got in!” he commanded with finality.  He slammed the door right when the guard was about to say something.

When he turned around, he looked down at the now-angry woman.  “Nikki…” he started to say but she interrupted him.

“That was very rude of you,” she told him, crossing her arms over her chest in a defensive move.  She was braving it out because she didn’t want him to know how truly terrified she was.  She didn’t think he would shoot her or do her any harm, but she suspected that she was in his private area.  That meant that his bedroom was very close and she didn’t want to be near him when a bed was near.  She didn’t understand it, but she didn’t have much willpower when it came to this man. 

“What was rude?” he demanded, moving closer to her. 

Automatically, she backed up, not wanting to be close to him.  She’d done that, knew the impact and wasn’t going to fall into that trap once again.  “Slamming the door when that man was trying to say something to you.”

“He was going to tell me that you needed to be imprisoned,” Nazar retorted.

“Oh,” Nikki replied, stunned by that news.  “Well, then…” her mind scrambled, never having come close to even getting a ticket before so the idea of being arrested and imprisoned was shocking.  “In that case, he was being rude.”

Nazar stepped closer, measuring the distance until she couldn’t move any further back, calculating how long until she would be in his arms.  “Rude doesn’t begin to describe it.”

Nikki tried a different tact.  “Nazar, you’re very angry, aren’t you?”

He shrugged one of his massive shoulders and continued to follow her, step for step.  “You could actually say that I’ve never been angrier.”

Wow!  She wasn’t sure she liked having that distinction.  “Why are you mad?” she asked, thinking that talking about it might help him diffuse some of his fury. 

“Why?  Let’s see,” he said, still advancing.  “You ran out on me the last time we met and I haven’t been able to contact you.  Nor have any of my very highly trained security guards been able to locate you.  And in the midst of all of this, you somehow not only sneak into my country, but you also manage to slip by the guards at the gate, the motion sensors on the walls, the guards in the monitoring room that are supposed to be alert enough to see anything that even approaches the palace walls, then you even got through the heat sensors and who knows what other kinds of security measures that have been installed.”  He watched her, seeing her eyes widen in alarm.  He was certain that she hadn’t even been aware of all those security measures, which made it even more astonishing that she’d bypassed every one of them.  “And you dared to enter into my private garden which caused about fifty guards to be alerted to your presence, all of whom wanted to be the hero who caught the intruder which would earn him a very valuable reputation.”

She licked her lips nervously, trying to smile in the hopes that he would see how unreasonable his anger was.  “You’re looking at this the wrong way,” she said, frantically trying to calm him down.  His elaboration of all of those things he says she got through was only making him angrier. 

“And how would you suggest I look at this, besides you putting your life in danger on so many levels and in so many ways?”

She thought hastily, trying to see the bright spot in all of this.  “Well….at least you know that your palace security isn’t up to snuff!” she explained with a bright smile.

He blinked at her words, stunned that she would dare offer such an outrageous “silver lining”.  “You succeeded where many others have tried and failed.”

Her eyebrows drew down low over her eyes.  “Are you telling me that others have tried to get in like I have?”

His anger only increased again.  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you!  Why did you even attempt something so outrageous?”

Nikki was tired of being cornered and scared.  She hadn’t had much sleep all night, nor had she slept well for several nights because of her worry over Brianna’s disappearance and some strange emotions she was feeling at the idea of what this man might be doing to her friend.  “Look,” she snapped, poking him in the middle of his chest.  “If you’d just tell me where my friend is, I would be more than happy to get out of your life.  I don’t know what you did with her, but she’s a good, sweet, kind woman and I care for her very much!”

He was astonished by her outburst.  “You still think that I had her kidnapped?” he practically growled at her.

Nikki had no idea if his staff had done the actual kidnapping of he just knew the person who had her.  But there had been something in his eyes that day at the press conference when she’d asked about the markets.  That was the key to all of this.  She didn’t know how all the dots connected, but she was just sure they did somehow.  “Yes!” she exclaimed, desperate now. 

He threw back his head and laughed.  He laughed so hard that Nikki was starting to get genuinely irritated.  When she tried to step away, he grabbed her arm to hold her in place.  Unfortunately, because his grip wasn’t hard or hurting her, she made the mistake that his grip wasn’t very firm.  So when she tried to slip away, he tightened his hold and laughed harder. 

She was tired of being the butt of his joke.  When she twisted around, trying to pull out of his arms with an old trick she’d learned in self-defense classes, she found herself tucked into his arms, both of them hard and secure around her middle while his hands held onto her wrists on opposite sides of her body.  All his laughter was gone and she was feeling decidedly serious now.  “Now what, my love?” he asked softly, his warm breath in her ear, causing little shivers to coast throughout her body.  “I’d love to see what your next move is going to be.” 

She wasn’t laughing, but nor was he and that had been her original intent, wasn’t it?  “Let me go!” she demanded through gritted teeth.  She couldn’t let herself feel the heat, to be affected by his nearness.  She had to get out of his arms or she’d find herself weakening against him.  He felt too good already. 

“I don’t think so,” he came back and shifted ever so slightly so that their bodies were more intimately touching.  “I think I rather enjoy you like this.”

“I don’t!” she said and tried to kick out against his shins.  Unfortunately, she didn’t want to genuinely hurt him so her aim was too soft and too much to the side. 

“You like to fight, eh?” he said, soft and husky.  “I like it when you move against me like that,” he said.

Nikki froze.  She could feel his whole body against her back, feel his warm breath against her neck.  She didn’t want to make any sudden moves because that would make her realize that he was basically hugging her.  But there was nothing comforting in his embrace.  In fact, she was feeling embarrassingly uncomfortable. 

“Let me go,” she whispered, painfully aware of his hard body behind hers. 

“I don’t think I want to,” he replied, his mouth pressing against the shell of her ear, causing her whole body to quiver in reaction.  “I think I like you right here in my arms.”

“I don’t like it,” she gasped when he moved his mouth, kissing her neck.  She tried to stop herself from shaking.  She didn’t want to feel that crazy heat unfurl inside of her.  And she definitely didn’t want her body to soften or want to turn towards him.  “Don’t do this to me,” she begged even while her body was doing all those things she didn’t want it to do.  “I don’t want this.”