The Sheikh Who Blackmailed Her: Desert Prince, Blackmailed Bride / The Sheikh and the Bought Bride / At the Sheikh's Bidding

There was no indignant screech when, after the slightest of hesitations, he stepped inside. The room was filled with steam that misted the reflective surfaces, and it took Rafiq’s eyes a few moments to adjust and see the woman in the bath.

He turned his head abruptly—though perhaps not as quickly as he might have. The heightened colour along the crests of his cheekbones was hidden by the fog of steam.

He stared fixedly at the wall, still seeing the image of pale limbs and a slim body that had imprinted itself on his retina. He reaction had been that of a green schoolboy catching his first sight of the naked female form. She had made no attempt to cover herself.

‘Sorry, but I did call out. When you are ready I will be in the salon.’

He was approaching the door when a soft gurgling sigh from the direction of the bath made him frown. ‘Miss Barton?’ He turned his head, and in a flash realised that the reason she had not replied was because she was either sound asleep or unconscious.

With a curse he crossed the room and strode straight into the water. She was lying so still that for a split second he thought she wasn’t breathing. When he saw the lift of her ribcage and small breasts he felt a rush of relief that was quickly replaced by anger—furious, molten anger.

Even as he called out her name he saw the ripple of water wash over her face. Sucking in a breath through clenched teeth, he bent and placed his hand under her head, lifting her face clear of the water. She stirred sleepily and muttered something unintelligible as he picked her up. It took two attempts. She weighed nothing, but even nothing, when it was wet and slippery and uncooperative, was hard to get a grip on.

As he heaved her bodily into his arms she opened her eyes and looked at him, her gaze big and blue as a summer sky. If he hadn’t come in when he had those eyes might have been permanently closed—sheer carelessness could have resulted in tragedy.

It was incandescent fury that Gabby saw on his face when she opened her eyes. She instinctively recoiled from the blaze of rage, but for several seconds there was no recognition in her eyes. Her sleep-fuddled mind was a total blank. Then events of the past two days came rushing back, and all the condensed misery and emotional turmoil hit her with the force of a brick wall.

She blinked up at the dark, lean features of Rafiq Al Kamil … He was going to help Paul, but she still didn’t know whether to put him in her friend or foe file … He was actually a bit big to fit in any file.

He was carrying her as though she weighed nothing, and there was no element of softness about him. Physically he felt all hard bone and muscle, and mentally his gaze was as unforgiving as tungsten steel.

Hold on! She blinked, frustrated at the time it was taking her brain to assimilate the most basic information. Then abruptly the time-lag between her seeing something and interpreting it narrowed, and her eyes widened to their fullest extent. He was carrying her!

‘What are you doing?’ She looked down and saw her naked body. She froze. ‘And why—’ her voice quivered ‘—am I naked?’

Gabby’s eyes slowly lifted. Wild panic was triggered as they connected with his, and she was swallowed up by a tide of mind-numbing horror. She began to struggle wildly, hitting out and screaming at the top of her lungs. She landed several blows before he responded to her shrill commands to put her down!

‘Be still!’

Panting from her exertion, Gabby looked at the towel held out to her with deep suspicion, before grabbing it and wrapping it around herself. Swathed from head to toe, she felt slightly more secure, but she was still shaking as she angled him a look of withering contempt, struggling to stop her teeth chattering.

She directed a narrow stare at his dark face. ‘T … take another step closer … touch me and I’ll …’ What? Gabby asked herself.

Scream? Because that’s done so much good so far, hasn’t it?

CHAPTER SIX

‘LET me ease your mind. There is no incentive you could offer that would make me come within five feet of you.’

He had always been drawn to cool goddesses, so in theory Rafiq knew that holding a wet, screaming, squirming, volatile virago should not have aroused him.

He dug his hands deep in his pockets in a vain attempt to disguise the fact that he was in fact deeply aroused. It was a case of theory losing out yet again when it collided with reality—especially wet, slippery reality.

Her smooth brow pleated in a deep frown as she tried to follow the sequence of events that had landed her naked in his arms. ‘How did I …?’

The last thing she remembered was soaking in the tub.

‘I was taking a bath …’ She shook her head and threw him an accusing glare. ‘Do you make a habit of sneaking up on women when they’re taking a bath?’

His nostrils flared. ‘I did not sneak.’

‘Well, you sure as hell didn’t knock!’

‘I did.’

This was getting childish—though there was nothing adolescent about his body in that suit, or presumably out of it—not that it was a subject that interested Gabby. She rolled her eyes, radiating a scorn she was far from feeling. She had lost time … how long?

Her thoughts were in a spiralling loop of bemusement. Had someone drugged her tea …? No, she hadn’t had any tea. Her dry throat reminded her of that. Or was it the result of the terror she had experienced when she’d found herself naked in a desert sheikh’s arms?

So he was now wearing a very western suit, and the tailor who had cut it to fit his frame must have been kissing the ground he walked on—but the desert sheikh thing still applied. It didn’t matter about the wrappings or the sophisticated, urbane demeanor. Deep down this man was a total barbarian—she had every right to feel terror.

Just terror …?

Gabby evaded his dark eyes and closed down that line of thought before it got going.

‘You were asleep.’

Gabby’s eyes lifted. She opened her mouth to refute the crazy claim, then closed it again. A few hazy memories came slipping back, but she ignored them and produced a disdainful sniff.

Asleep! Couldn’t the lecherous rat come up with a better story? Or was it possible that in some moment of insanity brought on by stress and emotion she had been responsible for ending up naked in his arms?

It seemed about as likely as him being overcome by lust and going Neanderthal. This man had control—iron control that it would take a lot to snap.

‘I might have dozed off for a moment,’ she conceded reluctantly. ‘But that doesn’t give you the right to—’

‘Save your life?’

This drew a laugh from Gabby. ‘My hero! Save my life? Pooh!’ she muttered, even as the realisation that he had seen her naked hit her again. The thought kept going around in her head, and every time it did she had to fight the urge to curl up into a mortified foetal ball and pretend this was all a dream—correction, nightmare!

‘You could have drowned.’ As he thought of how close she had been, he felt anger crowding in on him again.

About to pour scorn on this, Gabby closed her mouth with an audible click. She swallowed. ‘I only closed my eyes for a minute.’

Rafiq could hear the uncertainty in her voice.

His nasty smile was to Gabby’s mind unnecessarily smug.

‘When I got in the tub the water was stone-cold.’ His sweeping gesture drew her gaze downwards, and Gabby saw the bottoms of his beautifully tailored trousers were wet to above the knee. There were dark water stains on his shirt and jacket from where he had held her.

He had held her naked in his arms. She shook her head to dispel the image that was a distraction she did not need just now—though she knew she was going to be thinking about it later.

The colour flooded her face. ‘I fell asleep …? That was … I was …’

‘Stupid,’ he supplied helpfully.

She bit her lip, totally mortified. ‘I didn’t do it on purpose.’ She covered her face with her hands and groaned. ‘God, this is so embarrassing.’

He looked confused by her choice of words. ‘Why?’