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

With one long finger, he parted the blanket from top to bottom. She let him, mesmerized by the obvious need behind the soft fabric that covered his waist. Then he pushed her onto her back with one gentle hand and pressed closer, half covering her with his body.

Part of her said she was crazy for allowing this to go on. Another part insisted that she’d never felt this way before with any man, and what if she never would again?

He trailed his fingers between her breasts, over her stomach, to the cropped patch of hair below. Pleasure shot through her and had her trembling. Too fast. Too fast. The sensation scared her as much as it possessed her—frightened her because it possessed her.

She laid a hand on his chest and pressed against him. At this slight display of resistance, he stilled. When she drew her lips from his, he did not follow. But he leaned his forehead against hers, his breathing shallow and ragged, the first sign that he was as affected as she’d been. No, not the first. The hard proof of his desire pressed against her thigh.

She had come close to—

“We can’t,” she said, her voice weak.

“Why? What purpose would denying ourselves serve?”

“This is not how it works.” She wished she could form a coherent thought. What was happening here? What she had nearly done, and some part of her was still contemplating … She wasn’t like this at all.

“There are no one-night stands and quick hookups in the U.S.? That’s not how I remember it.”

She wondered how he had lived when he’d been there. A billionaire sheik. He’d probably had his choice of partners. And Sara was stupid beyond reason for allowing the thought to dismay her.

She pulled farther back, until they were no longer touching, until she could look into his dark eyes.

“I’m not a one-night stand sort of woman.”

“Good. I’m not a one-night stand sort of man.”

She retied the blanket around her. Tightly. And was proud that her fingers trembled only a little. “I’m not going to do this.” She marshaled the last of her willpower and resistance. “It’s not going to happen.”

The hyena laughed under their window, startling her back into his arms.

Chapter Five

Tariq crept through the night, sticking close to the buildings, staying deep in the shadows. Dawn had not yet arrived, but the moon lit their way. The storm had died down and their clothes were dry. Time to look around.

He couldn’t sleep, anyway. Not after he’d touched Sara and experienced the depths of her passion, the sweetness of her mouth, the feel of her under him. She had drawn away. He’d pushed too fast, too hard. Found it difficult not to. His sudden and fierce need demanded he have her.

“This way,” he murmured, and dashed across an open area, toward the large building near where he’d seen the tire tracks before. She ran behind him. Whoever had arrived in the middle of the night, in the middle of the storm, was most likely there.

Sara had come because they had but one weapon between them, the tire iron, and they’d had to put out the fire now that the wind was no longer blowing. They couldn’t risk someone smelling smoke. Tariq hadn’t seen the hyena for a while, but he didn’t want to leave her behind unprotected.

“Keep low,” he whispered.

She ducked her head down, her hair tumbling around her shoulders. She hadn’t put it back up. She was beautiful and sexy, with an incredibly hot body that made him ache with wanting. But there was so much more to her. Beauty alone couldn’t distract him this much. The world was full of beautiful women, and there was no shortage of sexy bodies happy to press up against a sheik who owned a couple of oil wells.

He wasn’t proud of the fact that in his youth he had taken advantage of that.

It’d been only over the last few years before he’d returned to Beharrain that the emptiness of his relationships had begun to bother him. And since he’d been here, he’d barely had a relationship at all.

Spending a day and a night with Sara Reeves made him wish for things he hadn’t given much thought to before. And he couldn’t afford to now. The task at hand required his full attention.

“Watch out.” He pointed toward a scorpion that skittered across the ground a few inches from her feet. He kicked sand at it. The scorpion lifted its tail, but turned and moved off in the opposite direction.

Sara’s lips tightened as she stared after it, but she didn’t make a noise or any sudden movement that might betray their presence. “Poisonous?” she whispered.

“Yes.” At the beginning of construction they had done an extensive relocation project, capturing scorpions and transporting them to the Rub al-Khali, the Empty Quarter, the uninhabited part of the desert.

Out of the dozens of species of scorpions in his country, only a few were poisonous. None had been found when they had surveyed the area, then shortly after work began, contractors came across several nests of them. It made Tariq wonder if they’d been brought in, yet another insidious form of sabotage. But as with the rest, nobody talked, nothing could be proved.

He moved forward again, creeping along the wall when they reached the building they’d been heading for. Sara came up close behind him the next time he stopped to listen for noises inside, their bodies separated by only an inch or two. He was aware of every soft breath she took, her every move, and wondered if she was as acutely aware of him as he was of her.

Back in the villa, she had pulled away. Probably the smart thing to do—not that he’d liked it. The instant connection between them had probably taken her off guard as much as it had him. So he would give her time. As much as he could. He would plan a slow seduction. It hardly seemed possible, and yet he must, because he wasn’t ready to walk away from her. He wanted more. A lot more. As soon as they were both safe and away from danger.

He moved on to the next window hole and glanced inside. “Two trucks,” he whispered.

She stiffened, probably thinking about the attack. But she drew her back straight in the next second, and he knew if it came to that, she would be ready to fight.

“Not the same ones,” he told her.

The trucks stood in the shelter of the walls, the one closest to him a Russian-made Kamaz. He couldn’t see enough of the other one to identify it, but they didn’t look like the beat-up military trucks that had attacked them on the way to the well. These were later models, in better shape.

Men slept, some snoring, on the sand that covered the floor.

“A single sentry,” he whispered as he watched a youth of maybe twenty sitting facing the entry. His back was propped against the wall, and his head bobbed as he fought sleep.

Tariq focused on the trucks. “I want to see what they are transporting.” It might provide the clue to why his convoy had been attacked, why his oasis project was regularly visited by people who had no business being here.

“Be careful,” Sara said.

With her on his heels, he ducked to keep out of sight, then rounded the building to get to the other side. Coming in the front would have been too conspicuous. But the structure had plenty of gaps in the walls. The best point of entry was a window hole on the other side, where the trucks would keep him out of sight of the guard.

Suddenly, the hair prickled at Tariq’s nape. He wasn’t consciously aware that he’d heard something, but he must have, because all of a sudden he knew without a doubt that they were no longer alone. He held up a warning hand for Sara as he stopped midstride and looked around slowly. A small sound came from behind a pile of bricks a few yards away. He flattened Sara against the wall and stepped in front of her, keeping the tire iron ready.

A shadow stretched forward in the moonlight. Was somebody crouching there? Tariq prepared to lunge. But then the shadow moved again and separated from the brick pile. The hyena. The animal growled at them.

Sara grabbed on to his shirt from behind.

“Keep still,” he whispered.

“Over there,” she whispered back.

He glanced around and spotted another, much larger shape between two buildings.

A camel? “How did that get here?”

Got lost in the sandstorm, most likely. Or it could be here with its rider, hiding out from the storm as Sara and he were, although Tariq would have expected the animal to be tied up in that case. Camels were notorious for wandering off, not something someone whose survival depended on the beast was likely to forget.

Encouraged by Tariq’s attention being drawn elsewhere, the hyena crept closer. Tariq tried to shoo the damn thing toward the camel, but of course, the hyena was interested in him and Sara, smaller targets that would make easier prey. It eyed Tariq with a leer, not looking particularly impressed by the tire iron. Understandable, when its powerful jaws could easily snap in half the wrist that held it.

Tariq swung the length of metal, anyway. The hyena danced back, but didn’t run away. And they couldn’t shout, couldn’t throw anything at it, couldn’t make a noise. Tariq strode forward, keeping his body between Sara and the beast.