The Sheikh Who Stole Her: Sheikh Seduction / The Untamed Sheikh / Desert King, Doctor Daddy

But she blanched at his last words, before pulling herself together with visible effort. Her gaze, which she’d carefully kept on his face until now, dipped lower. “Do you want me to look at your wound?”

He wasn’t concerned about his injury. And the two of them in close proximity didn’t seem like the smartest idea. But she was moving toward him already, and despite his better judgment, he nodded.

“The bullet went through.” He’d checked after the attack, right after making sure she was all right.

She knelt next to him, close enough so he could smell the scent of her skin.

“You need some serious disinfectants and stitching,” she said.

He looked at her. “You have medical training?”

She gave him an embarrassed half grin that made it impossible to look away from her mouth. “No, but we have a lot of medical TV shows in the States.”

He grinned back. “I remember.”

She lifted a hand to his arm, but held back at the last second, leaving her fingers hovering over his skin.

Heat swirled between them. Intensified. He held her gaze as the smiles slid off both their faces. Neither could deny the elemental force that had leaped to life.

Insane.

He had known her for a day.

But none of that mattered, no logic, no reasoning.

He leaned forward and watched her eyes go wide. But something from the outside penetrated the fog in his mind, and he paused, registering a lull in the storm. There was another noise, however, the rattle of engines. Trucks. At least two. He closed his eyes, and tried to judge their distance by the sound.

“WHAT IS IT?” Sara asked, reeling from the sudden heat and sexual tension between them.

Tariq had almost kissed her.

She had almost let him!

She drew back and pulled the blanket tighter around herself. What had she been thinking? This was completely unlike her. She wasn’t the type to be carried away with passion. She thought too much, analyzed too much, and according to Jeff, she was too cold and measured.

Who was this woman, half-naked and contemplating heavy-duty lip-locking with a sheik? He did have amazing lips. Her gaze fell on them.

“Somebody is coming,” he said.

That sobered her fast. “Help?”

He was a picture of alertness as he listened, his muscles taut, his body poised for fight already. Firelight glinted off his wide chest and flat abdomen. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

“The bandits?” Fear swept everything else from her mind.

Tariq shrugged.

She got up and hurried for her clothes, knowing they offered only the flimsiest protection, but wanting them still. The wind picked up again and howled as it rushed between the buildings.

“We should be okay until the storm is over,” he said. “They can’t see us. They can’t see anything.”

She slowed. He was probably right. The one time she’d looked out through a gap in the blankets, there had been zero visibility. “How did they find the place? Chance?”

“GPS.”

She picked up her blood-soaked shirt with disgust, glanced at the dozen or so bottles of water they had. “Mind if I use some of that?”

“Go ahead. We can fill up after the storm.”

She poured the contents of three into the pot. She shook the sand out of her skirt and jacket, and did spot cleaning on them first, getting the bloodstains out as best she could. When she was done, she soaked her shirt and his in the bucket. The murky water turned instantly red.

His blood. It was a miracle that he was still standing.

“How badly does your arm hurt?”

“It’ll be fine by morning.” He showed no concern for his injury, no sign of weakness.

She still found his intensity unnerving, but his obvious strength was a source of comfort.

“Let those soak for a while. We’ll rinse them later. It shouldn’t take long to dry them by the fire.” He nodded toward the “laundry.”

He was right, but she needed the distraction, wasn’t ready to return to the blanket, to him.

“You should rest,” she said. They would need all their strength and then some come morning, if the trucks they’d heard were the smugglers. “We’ll take turns keeping watch.”

His eyebrows slid upward as he gave her an amused smile. And she pressed her lips together, realizing what she had said and the way she’d said it. He was a sheik. He probably wasn’t used to being told what to do. But to her surprise, he didn’t object.

“Come here.” His voice was low and dangerous.

Against her better judgment, she obeyed.

“You first,” he said, when she reached the blanket.

And since he was sitting on the far corner of it, she felt safe enough to lie down on the very edge with her back to him, careful to keep her covering tight around her. His nearness generated plenty of heat between them, but the temperature was dropping outside. The desert cooled rapidly at night, and their fire wasn’t nearly substantial enough to heat a building as large as the villa. Goose bumps rose on her skin.

He must have been watching her closely, because the next moment he was by her side, running a hand down her arm.

“You’re cold.” He didn’t wait for confirmation, but lay behind her and took her into his arms.

It seemed too fast by half, and way too forward. They barely knew each other. And yet they had looked death in the eye together and had survived, which had formed an undeniable bond. Then there was the irrefutable attraction, deeper and fiercer than she had ever experienced before, bewildering in its intensity.

The muscles of his chest felt solid against her back, his skin warm.

She needed to think of something, to start a conversation that would take her mind off that fact.

“Do your brothers and sisters work in the family business like you?” he asked, before she had a chance to speak.

Had he been searching for a distraction, as well?