Never Resist a Sheikh (International Bad Boys) (9 page)

“You will wear the clothes
I give you and act as though you are perfectly willing to be there. You will not protest or insult our customs. You will comport yourself with grace and dignity.” His ministers were suspicious of his choice—he’d already had a number of them air their opinions the previous day—and it would not do to have her insult the entire court so early on. Not that he needed their agreement or permission,
but if he didn’t want to be the dictator his father was he’d need to at least show he was sensitive to their wishes.

Oddly, something that looked like doubt passed over her face, another quicksilver flash before it was gone. “Okay,” she said firmly. “I guess you have a deal.” Then she held out her hand over the table. “Shake on it.”

Don’t. Touching her would be a mistake.

But no, that was ridiculous.
He was stronger than this desire. He had long since mastered it.

Without hesitation, Zakir reached for her small hand, enclosing it in his own. And he was looking straight at her when he felt it go through him, the spark of electricity when his skin touched hers. Saw the flash of response in her eyes, saw them widen, her mouth opening in surprise and shock.

Felt himself respond, too. The hunter
now fully aware of his prey.

He tightened his fingers instinctively, the warmth of her skin somehow even hotter than the sun bearing down on them through the awning, because he had to test himself against this. Prove himself master of it.

Then she jerked her hand from his and he knew, with an instinct that was old as time, he wasn’t alone.

She’d felt it, too.

F
elicity sat on
a low chair in front of the mirror, her palms sweaty and heartbeat somewhere in the vicinity of her mouth. Behind her stood one of the veiled women who didn’t speak any English and who was now pinning a length of snowy white silk in her hair.

She stared at the stranger in the glass. Her face was pale, her eyes huge. They’d been carefully lined with black kohl,
her mouth painted a pale pink, the freckles across her nose vanished with some powder. Simple makeup and yet not at all what she usually wore. In fact, she usually wore no makeup because she hated the stuff. Hated how it made her feel like she was once again the quiet teenager berated by her mother for not making more of herself. For paying more attention to her schoolwork than to the very important
social engagements her mother insisted she attend.

Which made it weird that she was now sitting here, docilely letting someone else put paint on her face and do her hair. Folding her into the strange and diaphanous robes of white silk that wrapped around her and fluttered when she moved.

And all because she wanted a damn phone call. It made her feel even more like a prisoner than she did already.

She took a breath, resisting the urge to wipe her sweaty palms down the white silk of her robes.

Okay, so demanding an internet connection had been pretty direct of her and it was annoying that he wasn’t going to go for it.

Did you really expect him to?

If she was honest with herself, not really. He wasn’t stupid, as he’d already proved. Nevertheless, she’d hoped he might be in a generous mood.
Or even a pitying one. But apparently he wasn’t in either. And a phone call wasn’t going to be nearly enough. Still, she didn’t have much else in the way of options. She had to call Red Star, salvage what she could of the Al-Harahan deal, fix this somehow. Because the alternative…well, it just wasn’t happening. She’d spent too much time, too much blood, sweat, and tears building Red Star to see
it fail because some stupid sheikh had had the gall to kidnap her. Not to mention the fact that she had a whole lot of people whose jobs depended on her.

No, she needed that phone call. Needed to see if she could renegotiate with the Al-Harahan government, reschedule the meeting…

For when? He isn’t going to let you go anytime soon.

She ground her teeth. Well, maybe she’d be able to get some
secret message out or something. Whatever happened though, she’d have to act the good little prisoner now. Annoying, when she’d sworn to herself she’d never let anyone use her, never let anyone force her into doing something she didn’t want again. Yet here she was, letting the sheikh do exactly that.

Damn the sheikh. Damn Zakir.

And yes, she’d call him by his name and not
sire
or
your majesty
or any other title a king might be used to. She wanted to reduce him in her mind, not build him up.

Her palm stung, reminding her of another reason why she might want to reduce him, and not just because he was obviously a power hungry dictator intent on forcing his will on her. A reason that didn’t have much to do with the fact that he was a king, but everything to do with the fact that he was
a man.

She shivered, remembering the feel of his hand enclosing hers. His skin had felt hotter than the stone of the courtyard, burning her all the way through. And the power in that one clasp, the subtle strength in his long fingers… He could have crushed her hand without any effort. Yet he hadn’t. His grip had been firm, but strangely gentle. And that weird electricity that had gone straight
up her arm…

Instinctively she’d met his gaze, shocked by the dark glitter of hunger in his eyes. As if she were food. No one had ever looked at her like that, not one single man. At college, she’d been far too young, the schoolgirl genius playing with the grown-ups. And afterwards, after she’d gotten her company up and running, there had been the odd guy who’d expressed an interest. Yet it had
been obvious even then that it wasn’t her they wanted, only a ticket into the industry…

You liked it. You liked the way Zakir looked at you.

No. Stupid. She didn’t like it. And her body was an idiot.

Her palm stung, but this time it wasn’t because of the remembered heat of the sheikh’s hand in hers, it was her own nails digging in. Trying to drown out that heat and the memory. An impossible
task.

He kidnapped you. Remember that instead.

Felicity bit her lip. Hard.

The woman behind her tutted, pulling out the lipstick and touching it up before Felicity could protest. Then she was gently urged to her feet and ushered to the door, the gilded flat slippers she wore scuffing on the stone floor, the white silk of the robes billowing out behind her.

She felt like a walking sail or some
kind of ambulatory cloud.

Outside the door, there were the usual guards, plus the bearded, hard-faced man who had introduced himself as Jamal, one of the sheikh’s head guards and advisor, or something.

He never looked very pleased to see her, which was fair enough since she wasn’t very pleased to see him either.

His hard, dark eyes swept over her and he said something to the women, who nodded
their heads and glided away down the corridor without a backward glance. Oddly bereft, Felicity only just stopped herself from nibbling on her perfectly painted mouth again. “So it’s party time, I guess?” she said inanely.

Jamal said nothing, but then he didn’t need to. His scornful gaze was enough.

Wonderful. This was like her disastrous debutant ball all over again, where she’d been presented
to New York society with all the other girls her age. Another pointless social engagement, another occasion where everything she did would be picked at and pulled apart by her mother. Where her father wouldn’t even notice she was there.

It’s not the same.

No, of course it wasn’t. Anyway, she was over that. She didn’t bow to anyone else’s expectations these days. She’d embraced who she was. Hell,
she was proud of it.

Tonight would be an exception. She’d be who the sheikh wanted her to be for the sake of a phone call. And with any luck her company wouldn’t have collapsed while she’d been away. Hell, maybe he even had some cell phone reception in that office of his. All she needed was a whiff of a signal for her phone to connect and then someone would be able to trace her.

Who? Your parents?
You haven’t spoken to them for years.

Felicity clasped her hands together as she followed Jamal down the dim, narrow corridors of the palace.

Not them. She had friends and she had her company. They would be frantic if they knew she was missing. Which they didn’t because according to his majesty everyone thought she was having a lovely sightseeing jaunt out into the desert. Though maybe they’d
find that odd? Especially considering they’d know she wouldn’t pass up an important meeting for a bit of sightseeing.

Whatever. Damn him.

Perhaps waiting it out was the best thing. Wait for a signal or wait for enough time to pass before someone realized she hadn’t gone sightseeing at all.

Someone? Your employees, maybe? Because even your friends aren’t that close.

Something painful twisted
inside her, but she didn’t want to examine it too deeply so she forced it away. Better to think about this upcoming feast or party or whatever it was that Zakir was presenting her at.

“You will not protest or insult our customs. You will comport yourself with grace and dignity.”

Well, she was wearing the clothes he’d had sent to her rooms that afternoon. And there was no way she was going to
insult his customs or his people. She wasn’t stupid, after all.

Yet as Jamal led her down a massive flight of stone stairs to a pair of huge wooden double doors, she couldn’t stop the fear that clenched tightly around her heart. God, she hated social stuff like this. She never knew what to say to people.

But perhaps she’d be lucky. Perhaps there’d be hardly anyone there.

A figure waited beside
the doors, tall and broad-shouldered, swathed in black robes and a head covering of midnight blue. The circlet holding the head covering in place looked like it had been made out of twisted gold thread and it glittered in the light.

A crown for a desert king.

And this time the twist inside her had nothing to do with fear.

The sheikh was unsmiling as his black eyes swept over her and she could
feel the heat begin to rise to her cheeks. Because for some reason she couldn’t seem to look away from him. There was something savage about him, something dark and wild and ancient as time itself. As if he’d been carved from the same stone as the palace around him and had reigned here for a thousand years. Dark and silent and indestructible. Strong.

It made her shiver in her white silk robes.
Sent a pulse of heat ricocheting around in her bloodstream.

You’re mad. He’s a violent stranger who kidnapped you and who is currently holding you prisoner.

Yes, quite clearly she was mad. And she must have Stockholm syndrome or something if she was starting to think he was… No, attractive was too mundane a word for what he was. Attractive was for the rich, Ivy League young men her mother had
once shoved in front of her and told her to make nice to.

The sheikh of Al-Shakhra was not one of those young men. At all.

And, God help her, she found him fascinating. The danger of him. The challenge of him. The sheer intricate mystery of him. He hadn’t seemed to want to talk about himself that morning at breakfast when she’d asked him about being a soldier, but she suddenly wanted to know
all about him.

He said something to Jamal in that deep, rough voice of his, but his black gaze never left her.

And in English he said, “You will do.”

And though the words sounded halfhearted, she knew they weren’t. Because in his eyes was the dark thing she’d seen that morning at breakfast, the starved thing that glittered like shattered obsidian. The hunger that made her heart race and shortened
her breath. There was nothing halfhearted about that.

Suddenly out of her depth, Felicity looked away.

He scared her, no question, and for some reason she didn’t understand, she liked that.

“Jamal,” he ordered. “It is time.”

His guard went to the double doors and pushed them open.

Felicity tried to slow her breathing, tried to relax. Tried not to be aware of how every muscle was tensing up.
She didn’t know where this pressure was coming from, especially since she’d long since stopped feeling like she had to prove herself to anyone, yet there it was. It annoyed her.

Pasting a grin on her face, her heartbeat like thunder, she noticed Zakir extending a hand to her. Oh hell, she was supposed to take it, wasn’t she?

She didn’t want to, not after what had happened last time. But she
couldn’t refuse. She’d promised she’d give him this in order to get that phone call. So she reached out and took his hand, feeling the intense jolt of electricity as he closed his fingers around hers.

It shook her, set her off balance, made her unsure. And if there was anything she hated, it was feeling unsure. She was used to being smart, to knowing things, so this was weird. Especially when
intellectually she knew about sex and all it involved.

But you’ve never felt it before.

Felicity gritted her teeth and forced the thoughts away. No, she felt nothing. Nothing.