At The Sheikh's Command

‘A few paltry items!’ she scorned. ‘What? A coin or two? A fossil? And for that you’d lock him up for life!’

‘A few paltry religious items,’ Malik corrected coldly. ‘Items of deep significance to the history of Barakhara and its rulers. Items that in just the last century would have meant death for any non-Barakharanian to touch…’

He watched the colour ebb from her face with grim satisfaction. The ashen shade of her cheeks told him all he needed to know.

‘You didn’t know that?’

She could only shake her head, sending the pale gold of her hair flying as she did so.

Andy. Malik’s mind went back to the word in the way that he might worry at a sore tooth with his tongue. Andy…So what was the relationship between these two? Did they have something going between them? Was Andy perhaps her lover? The sting of jealousy that thought brought was as jagged as it was unexpected, making him move sharply, uncomfortably.

‘So he omitted to tell you the full facts about why he was arrested?’

Or was it the father who had done that? Was it the truth of the matter that James Cavanaugh—Sir James Cavanaugh— didn’t want the world to know just what his stupid elder son had been up to?

Malik’s mouth curled in distaste. The Honourable Andrew Cavanaugh was what the son called himself—what he had insisted on being called, Jalil had said. And the Honourable Andrew Cavanaugh lived in a house like this, with maids to clean and fetch and carry for him, and still he stole to line his own pockets. There was little that was honourable about that.

‘So now perhaps you’ll admit that I have a reason for what I’m doing. That I am not quite the spawn of the devil you think me?’

‘I…’

She didn’t seem able to find an answer for him. Her soft pink lips opened, but no words would come out. And clouds of confusion dulled the silvery grey of her eyes.

Suddenly Malik felt a sense of rage at the fate that had brought him here, the job he had to do. Why couldn’t Jalil do his own dirty work?

There were times when he wished he could just let his young fool of a half-brother go to damnation in his own way. But if Jalil fell, then the whole of his country would go to rack and ruin too, and he had sworn an oath to his mother—Jalil’s mother too—that he would never let that happen. A vow made within the family was sacrosanct, and he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t keep it—no matter what it took.

He had hoped that a little dalliance with the blonde maid would at least provide some entertainment, some relaxation after the delicate negotiations he was going to have to handle. But from the stubborn, mulish expression on her face, he was going to have to work harder at winning her over than he had ever thought.

The unwanted and uncomfortable thought suddenly hit him that if she knew the son—this Andy—so well, then maybe she was close to the daughter as well.

That was a complication he could do without. He had seen no sign yet of the Gail that Jalil had talked about, but if she and this girl were friends…

‘No—he didn’t tell me,’ she managed now, stumbling over the words faintly and a raw colour washed those pale cheeks, betraying her embarrassment…

And making her look damnably sexy. It might be mortification that had put the blush on her skin but it made her look as if she had just got out of bed after a long, passionate session of sexual indulgence. It might have been the way that she had bitten down hard on her lower lip that had made it so pink, with all the blood rushing to the surface, but in his mind he knew that her mouth would look like that when she had been kissed senseless, taken to ecstasy and beyond.

‘What’s your name?’ he demanded suddenly, his voice rough with the effort of trying to distract himself from the heated blood that seemed to be pooling low in his body, hardening and tightening so that it was a struggle to think straight—to think at all.

‘I’m Abbie,’ she told him, looking a little startled that he should ask.

Not Gail, Malik thought on a rush of relief. Just for one uncomfortable moment he had wondered…

‘And what should I call you?’

She’d pulled back some of her confidence now, some of the strength there had been in her in the moment of her arrival in the room. There was a definite edge of sarcasm to her tone on the question. One that tugged a smile at the corner of his mouth, one that was impossible to hold back.

‘You can call me Malik.’

‘Malik…’ Abbie’s tongue curled around the exotic sound of the word as if she were tasting it.

It sounded rich and exotic, strong and firm—just right. Just like him.

‘Is that all?’

Her voice was softly husky, dragged from a throat that was too dry, too tight, to speak naturally. She swallowed hard and slicked a moist pink tongue over suddenly parched lips, watching his black gaze drop just for a moment to follow the tiny revealing gesture. And when his eyes lifted again, burning straight into hers, she knew that she was lost. She had fallen into sensual slavery without knowing why or how it had happened. But she was in and tumbling head over heels into an endless chasm of awareness, one from which she already knew she had no hope of escape.

Not that she wanted to. That smile had rocked her world. It had only been a small curl at the corners of his sexy mouth but it had made her shiver in instant reaction, heated pinpricks of awareness tormenting her sensitised skin.

‘Shouldn’t I add something else?’

Her question brought those brilliant eyes swiftly back up to her face, locking with her own bemused gaze, holding it fixed.

‘Add something?’ he asked, the musical sound of his voice coiling round her senses like warmed silk. ‘Like what?’

Like what? Abbie asked herself, scrabbling through the disorder of her thoughts, trying to find the original track they had been running on, the one she had meant them to follow.

‘Like—like sir,’ she managed hesitatingly.

He was a sheikh, wasn’t he? A ruler. Of the royal house of Al’Qaim. Surely he must have some official title that she had to use.

‘Or—or Your Majesty—or…Highness—’

The words broke off, her voice cracking as he moved suddenly, coming so very close. In spite of the heat, she found that she was once again shivering as if a cold draught had blown over her skin.

Having looked into the dark depths of his eyes, she found she couldn’t look away again but was held frozen, mesmerised, captive. She couldn’t have moved away if she’d tried. But she didn’t try—couldn’t try—didn’t want to try.

Instead she knew that the saving grace of all that anger was deserting her, evaporating in the warmth of that smile. And when she saw the faint golden glow of amusement that lit those amazing eyes then she was lost. All the resistance in her melted like ice before a fire.

‘Just Malik…’ he murmured. Somehow he had moved closer so that the heat of his breath on the words brushed along her cheek, stirring a tendril of hair at the lobe of her ear.

She inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of him, the warm musk of his skin, and let her breath out again on a sigh.

‘Malik…’ she said softly, her tongue savouring the exotic sound of his name. The frantic beat of her heart had slowed, become heavy, indolently sensual, and the honeyed warmth of arousal was uncoiling low down in her body, all that was most feminine in her reaching out to all that was masculine in him.

‘Malik…’ she said again, wanting to say so much more but not having the courage to do so.

Touch me! she wanted to say. Let me feel the heat of your skin on mine, the strength of your hand, the stroke of your caress…

But the words died on her lips; she couldn’t make her tongue form the words even though she felt as if they were screaming inside her head. She had never felt this way before in her life.

No—the truth was that she had never known that it was possible to feel this way. To know this hunger, this desire for a man she had only just met. A man who made her heart thud, her pulse race, who made her aware of him in every part of her body so that her breasts stung and heat pooled in the most intimate spot between her thighs.

She’d had boyfriends in the past, but no one—no one—had ever affected her like this.

‘You’re beautiful…’

Malik moved slightly, coming even nearer, and once again the scent of his skin, the faintest hint of the perfume of cedar wood, reached out to surround her, tormenting her senses. She couldn’t take it any more. Couldn’t bear just to stand here and know he was so close—and yet not close enough.