The Sheik's Safety (5 page)

And yet, the sight of a single injured woman rattled him. Not that strange, she thought after a moment. In his culture, men were supposed to keep women protected.

“I'm okay. It wasn't your fault,” she said.

“Fine. At least don't move.” He went off to the bathroom and came back with a wet towel, dabbed off the dried blood from her skin.

The wound wasn't terribly bad, barely oozing now. She didn't see what the big deal was. “I thought the servants were going to help me clean up.”

“I changed my mind. You're not well enough to clean up. We wait for the doctor.”

Too bad. Her gaze skipped to the bathroom and she nearly moaned aloud at the thought of sinking chin deep into bubbles. She'd had few luxuries in her life. The tub in the other room was calling her name.

“When I ask you a question, I expect you to tell me the truth.” He was still looking at the torn flesh, his eyes dark with disapproval.

“I did. It's nothing. Believe me, I've been in worse shape.” And that was the truth.

His hand moved higher on her arm, his thumb skimming over an old bullet wound two to three inches below her shoulder. Pleasure skittered across her skin and she bit her lower lip to make it go away. It didn't quite work. He hesitated on the spot, making a circle around it before running his fingers back to her current injury.

“It's a hell of a lot more than nothing.”

She stared at him surprised. First time she had heard him swear. So far he had been cool and collected and regal and all that. And to be truthful, she found it appealing in a strange kind of way. Maybe because he was so different from her. She'd grown up around military men, talking trash, wearing bravado as a uniform, everybody vying for the position of biggest badass on the team.

She found Saeed's elegant restraint attractive. More so because she knew from experience the wall of strength behind it.

He drew a thumb over the bump in her skin below the old scar. “What's this?”

She looked away, hesitated. “Birth-control implant.” Not that it was any of his business. She'd thought of
having it removed—heaven knew she hadn't needed it in a long time—but never got around to it.

He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a knock on the door that brought a short gentleman in his fifties, fashionably graying at the temples. The doctor. The man wore a three-piece suit as if he were going to a formal reception. After greeting Saeed, he sat on the bed next to Dara and took her pulse while he looked at the wound, then he pulled a handful of supplies from his bag, all sealed in white paper.

“Don't you have something else to do?” she asked Saeed.

He threw her a hard look, but did not reply.

She didn't know what to make of him. She didn't expect him to be this upset over her injury. Hell, she wasn't. Nobody ever had been. Her mother had always been too seeped in her own misery to notice if anything was wrong with her daughter, and then she had left. Her father's standard response to blood, even when she was a child, had been “Shrug it off, soldier.”

The doctor unwrapped a syringe, filled it up and numbed the skin around the wound, before getting out his suturing tools.

Saeed sat on the bed next to her, leaving a proper distance between them. “I'm sorry. You are my guest. As your host I am responsible for your safety.”

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. She was doing her job. Injuries were par for the course. She was his bodyguard. He still didn't get that at all. She shook her head.

Long learning curve ahead.

 

S
HE WAS HURT
. The idea pained him. Saeed tapped his fingers on his desk, distracted from the calls he had to make. He found it hard to concentrate with the foreign woman in the house. And he had never needed a clear head more than at the moment. His life depended on it.

He picked up the receiver. The minister of agriculture, he decided. He had already set up a meeting for the next day with the minister of trade. A safe bet, he hoped. He was one of the old guard. Saeed hoped Jumaa hadn't found a way to get to the man yet. If the minister of trade had turned, he could be walking into a trap.

He was dialing the last number when he saw one of his servants approach.

“Yes?” He listened to the phone ring on the other side.

“She is awake, sir.”

He nodded his thanks and dismissal as he set down the phone.

The smartest thing he could do would be to stay away from her. It angered him that he couldn't. He
wasn't some overeager schoolboy. He was a man with a man's control. Except when it came to her.

He'd been lost from the moment he'd kissed her. No, he corrected after a moment of reflection. He'd been lost since long before that—since he'd first looked into her gold-speckled ebony eyes.

He wanted her. He wanted her despite her stubbornness, despite her unreasonable nature, despite the fact that they were as unsuitable for each other as two people ever could be. He wanted to write the attraction down to the fact that she was different, a novelty. But he'd seen plenty and even dated some Western women. He'd spent three years in college at Cambridge, and now traveled the world on business frequently.

He walked out of his office, down the halls, then hesitated at her door before opening it. His eyes locked onto her immediately, registering in his peripheral vision one of the maids who was clearing away a tray. He had ordered her dinner to be served in here.

“Almost ready,” she said, sitting on the bed, braiding her hair, her slim fingers slipping through the silky strands gracefully, with practiced ease.

He wanted to see it down, to run his own fingers through it. He frowned, not liking the train of thought, then his gaze fell on the camouflage uniform she had put back on.

“It is our custom for women to wear dresses.”

She gave him a polite smile, which drew his attention to her full lips. They were pomegranate-red. From the moment he'd seen them, he had thirsted for them.

“Maybe I'll change when we go out,” she said, securing the end of her braid with a band.

He was used to having his words taken as direct order and followed. She alone resisted him. He wanted her all the more for it.

“I'm more comfortable in these and there's no one to worry about here in the house. I assume your staff won't report me to the religious police for breaking some code and corrupting morals. They can be trusted?”

“Naturally.” He didn't worry about his staff. The only one he didn't trust around her was himself.

“Did you sleep well?” The blood loss and the painkillers the doctor had given her had made her sleepy. It had taken all his powers of persuasion to convince her to take a brief rest. She did so only when he had promised under no circumstances to leave his office while she was not there to protect him.

She nodded as she stood. “Okay, let's go. We can't afford to waste any more time.”

He had never known anyone like her. Her single-mindedness was extraordinary. “Where would you like to go?”

“I want to inspect the premises. I have to ascertain they are as secure as they can be made.”

He watched her face, marveled at the businesslike tone of her voice. She was still under the illusion that she was his bodyguard.

“My security is excellent, but if you'd like I would be happy to show you around.” He was more than willing to spend time in her company.

She passed by him as she stepped out the door, and he let his gaze glide over her—the way the uniform stretched across her breasts, her derriere and slender legs. The belt brought his gaze to the gentle movement of her hips. He swallowed, feeling like a pervert. If he was, she brought it out in him. She made him feel things he hadn't felt since he was a teenager.

He made a point of walking next to her, showed her the living quarters first, then the garden, the roses that had been his father's pride, but it wasn't enough. She wanted to see everything: the kitchen, servants' quarters, the garages. Night had fallen by the time they were done. He ended the tour at the door of his private suite.

“What's this?”

“My rooms.”

“I need to see everything.”

Naturally. He opened the double doors for her, aware that the only woman to have ever walked through them with him before had been his wife.

She checked his sitting room with military thoroughness, and his office, but hesitated when she stepped into his bedroom, then got over whatever was holding her back and went to it.

“Satisfied?” He stood in the doorway watching her, an unbidden sensation stirring then settling into his guts at the sight of her standing next to his bed.

“Mmm,” she responded, distracted.

She was plotting to save him. He could see the wheels turning in her head, and couldn't help a smile at the thought. “Let me escort you back to your room. If you need anything you need only to ask the servants.”

He wouldn't have minded spending time with her, a lot more time, but she needed rest. He had found her in the desert near death, only two days before. Food and water had done wonders, but her body had not yet fully recovered. He worried that her new injury might set her back, although the doctor had assured him the wound was superficial.

She walked out of the bedroom, her gaze settling on the black leather couch in his office. “I'll be sleeping here.”

“No,” he replied on reflex.

She plopped down and gave him a dazzling smile. He didn't suppose any man could resist her when she looked like that.

She bounced on the seat cushions, and her smile widened. “You know, this is not half-bad. Pretty lux
urious actually, compared to a couple of places I had to bunk at the last few years.” She ran her slim fingers over the fine-grade leather.

And in his head he could see the two of them on that couch. Naked. He swallowed. “Fine. Suit yourself.”

Her smile widened. “Once you get used to me, you'll barely even notice I'm here.”

He doubted that could ever happen.

He stood there looking at her, hesitated, and considered for a moment asking her to share his bedroom. Pure insanity. He tossed the thought aside. She was injured. He was a civilized man, not an animal.

“Good night.” He turned on his heels and retreated, for the first time in his life.

He could hear her “good night” through the closed door as he walked to the middle of the room and stopped, wanting very much to go back to her.

Nothing but madness. He stripped out of his clothes and went into the bathroom, took a long shower, as cold as he could stand it. When he was done, he slipped on silk pajama bottoms and lay on the bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling. No chance of an assassin surprising him in his sleep while she was in the house. Not because she was guarding him, but because he was unlikely to sleep as long as she was near.

He didn't even try not to think about her.

The first hour passed without sleep touching him,
then the second. Then the sound of screaming and clatter in his office ripped open the silence of the night. He was on his feet and through the door in a split second.

Saeed flipped on the light and stopped in his tracks at the sight before him.

Dara was sitting on the chest of one of the maids, Leila, his pistol in her hands, aimed at the whimpering woman's head.

“Let her go,” he said, slowly, distinctly.

She stood up, keeping the gun aimed. “She sneaked in here in the dark.”

“What happened?” he asked the near hysterical woman in Arabic as he stepped to Dara and held his hand out for the pistol.

She wasn't giving it up. Fine, he'd deal with her later. He was going to have to remember to lock up anything she might use for a weapon. He had a fine staff; he wasn't ashamed to admit that he was attached to them. Some of them had been in service since his father's time. He had considered them more as family members than hired help.

Leila sat up and apologized, on the brink of crying. Her cat had run out when she'd got up to go to the bathroom; she was just looking for the animal.

He translated for Dara, relieved when she finally lowered the gun.

The maid apologized again and when he assured
her he was not angry about the disturbance, she retreated from the room.

“I will not have anyone in my house mistreated,” he said, holding Dara's gaze, knowing that the clamoring in his chest wasn't from concern for his staff, although he didn't like anyone in his employ being tackled.

He was having a near heart attack because for a moment he had thought an assassin had gotten in and harmed the woman who had so captivated him, whose safekeeping was his responsibility.

“Did you pull out any of your stitches?” He reached for her arm.

“I don't think so.”

“I would like to see.”

She shrugged and unbuttoned her shirt, and his throat went dry when he realized she was going to undress. The bandage was too big to roll the sleeve up over it.

She slipped her injured arm out, her shirt hanging off her right shoulder. He tried to look away from her perfect breasts, covered only by a thin cotton camisole that was plain and utilitarian. It drove him mad.

He lifted the bandages then stuck them back on when he was satisfied that she was all right, but he did not let go of her. He pulled her into the bedroom, closed the door behind them.

“I want you to stay here.” For more than one rea
son, he thought, but for now he would settle for her safety.

She must have read him because he saw the fight rise in her eyes. Then the bodyguard in her won and she nodded. She was so serious, ready to perform her duty at all times and under all circumstances. He admired her dedication.

Under her beauty lay a steel core he found irresistible.

He hadn't meant to kiss her, he had merely wanted to protect her, even knowing she was more than capable of looking after herself. But no matter how good his security, nothing was impossible for a man with determination. Or for a woman—he was beginning to believe. If an assassin got in…And at that point of the thought process, reason flew out the window.