The Black Sheep Sheik (9 page)

Even if all she’d wanted to be was Annie Oakley. Well, when she’d been really young. In elementary and middle school, being a famous female sharpshooter or a cowgirl had been her career dreams. Then the more she understood all that her father did for others, the more she wanted to be like him. Never like her mother. She even made a point to do poorly in gym class. She didn’t want any talk that she would be an athlete and follow in her mother’s footprints.

She turned back to him slowly and watched as his eyes narrowed.

“Let me understand this. You fear that marrying me might make you too safe?” She didn’t
exactly
mean that, but close enough. She nodded.

“I do wish for your safety.” His tone was somber. “But I fear I have failed at every attempt to keep you out of trouble. Look at the danger I consistently put you in. Look at where we are even at this moment.”

“You didn’t put me in danger.”

He shook his head with impatience. “You’re in danger because of me. You are here because I came back to you, because you saved my life and sheltered me.” He looked pained.

“No matter what happens, I’m not going to regret that.”

For a second, she thought he would take her into his arms again. But instead he stepped away from her and continued the thorough search of the shed. “I’m going to get us out of here.”

She rubbed against the pain in her lower back, then sat on the dubious-looking bed. Getting on her hands and knees to help Amir search the floor was out of the question. She had to let him take care of that. Not that she expected him to find much, anyway. The shed was pretty bare.

He ran his hand over the same spot he’d just searched a second ago, then went still.

“What is it?”

He yanked a dusty rug aside and felt the floorboards with his hands. “I think there’s a secret door here,” he whispered.

He used the screwdriver for leverage but didn’t succeed at first.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Rest.”

“I’m not completely useless, you know.”

“I never said that.” He tried another angle, wedging the screwdriver into some invisible gap, then using the side of his fist as a hammer to drive it in a little.

Then she heard a small pop and the wood creaked. Too loudly? She held her breath. Nobody came from outside. No indication that the man out there had heard them. Amir leaned onto the screwdriver’s handle. And after another small pop, the panel of wood flooring did come up, leaving a two-foot-by-three-foot gap in front of him that she could barely make out in the darkness.

She leaned forward, excitement coursing through her veins. “What’s down there?”

“I can’t see, but the space is pretty big.”

Some old conversations she’d had with her father came back suddenly. “You know, old McClusky was rumored to be a moonshiner back in the day.”

Amir glanced up with a questioning look.

“Alcohol was illegal for more than a decade in the U.S. Didn’t last long, but while it did, a lot of people made money distilling their own booze in out-of-the-way shacks like this. Some still do, just for the hell of it.”

He stepped over the hole and lowered himself carefully. “Islam does not allow alcohol at all. We believe it ruins too many good men. Too many families.”

She couldn’t argue with that, knowing well what alcohol and drugs had done to her mother. She’d been thinking more and more about her lately. Probably because she was about to become a mother herself. But now wasn’t a time for dwelling on the past. She needed to put those old regrets away.

“Look out for snakes,” she suggested. As many spiders as there were up here, she couldn’t imagine what all might live down there. She wouldn’t go down for anything, which wasn’t an issue, since her belly wouldn’t fit through the opening, anyway. She could take blood and gore, but she usually screamed her head off when she was faced with a centipede.

“Looks like a whole other room.” Things rattled down there in the dark.

“Does it have an outside exit?”

“I see a section that’s walled up. Maybe it used to lead to a tunnel.”

Her back was screaming bloody murder. She lay down on the bed gingerly. It held. She closed her eyes, exhausted. Of course, she was always tired these days. Growing a baby inside her was hard work, taxing her body.

The soft noises Amir made below comforted her. She wasn’t alone in this. She relaxed a little. Then she relaxed all the way.

Bare and breezy wasn’t exactly her style. She so regretted giving in to Janie about the costumes. She normally strove for a conservative and professional look at the hospital. Isabelle tugged a few strategically placed veils into place and looked around the charity ball, reminding herself that they were doing this for the right reason. The pediatric wing needed new equipment. She was happy to be part of this.

Then the short hairs at her nape rose and she turned, feeling someone’s attention on her as surely as if he’d called her name. Her eyes found him immediately. His dark gaze burned into hers from across the room. Air caught in her lungs. She couldn’t look away.

He was tall, his dark hair matching his eyes, olive complexion, regal bearing. He was dressed in a flowing white caftan thickly embroidered with gold. He looked like some sort of a Middle Eastern prince. That their costumes matched didn’t escape her. Around her, the other girls from general surgery twittered, having obviously spotted him.

“Who is
that?
” Abby asked.

“Mine.” Lynn pushed forward as the man started for them.

But he held Isabelle’s gaze, not sparing a single glance at the others.

He held out his long-fingered hand for her, and mesmerized, she put her hand in his.

“It’s hot in here. Shall we take a turn out on the balcony?” His voice had a slight exotic accent, deeply rich and melodic.

She simply nodded. There did seem to be a sudden lack of air in the room, she noticed.

“You work in the hospital?” he asked once they were outside. He didn’t release her.

“Yes.” The cool night air felt good. “You?” Although, if she’d seen him here before, no way would she have forgotten it.

“I’m from Jamala. I’m only visiting. Are you a doctor?”

“Yes.” Way to go with the one-word sentences.

“That is still rare in my country. Women in medical school, I mean.” He gave a smile that went straight to her knees.

They talked about the hospital, then health care in his own country. He was informed, intelligent, articulate. And she found that they agreed on a great many things. Although he set her nerve endings buzzing, talking with him was incredibly comfortable.

He took her empty champagne glass and set it on one of the stone balustrades. “I have better champagne in my suite. Will you join me?”

She knew what he was asking.

She nodded, half numb, and didn’t know where she got the temerity. Maybe they would just talk.

“Good.” There came that smile again as he drew her behind him. “I want to kiss you in private.”

Heat spread through her. She seemed helpless under whatever spell he had woven over her.

They took the elevator upstairs but they weren’t alone. She pulled her hand from his, not wanting others to see and set hospital tongues wagging. He seemed to understand and waited patiently until the others left. Then he took her hand again and kissed it.

Her pulse jumped at the contact, at the warmth of his lips.

Soon they were off the elevator and in his suite, and apparently it was time for that kiss, because he didn’t waste any time bending his head to meet her lips.

Oh, sweet heaven.

He wasn’t the first man to have kissed her, but no kiss she’d ever received had been like this. She felt like she had just stepped, eyes wide, into a hurricane. Every bit of shyness, resistance and common sense was instantly blown away.

Need like that shouldn’t exist,
she thought, dazed. And more than a little scared. He was infinitely more than she had expected. He explored her and claimed her as his own sovereign territory. He ruled her senses. Her lungs were fighting for air by the time he pulled away.

“It’s… I’m normally not like this,” she said, bewildered, not knowing what to do next. Her knees were too shaky to stand, but she couldn’t make herself head straight for the sprawling couch, and she barely even dared looking at the immense bed through the open bedroom door. “I’ve never followed a stranger to his room before,” she admitted.

“Nothing will happen that you do not wish,” he assured her immediately, but his eyes were ablaze with desire.

Nothing that she didn’t wish. Trouble was, she wished…
everything.

Which was so completely irresponsible.

He walked to the bar and poured them champagne, a much better brand than downstairs in the ballroom, as he had promised. The bubbles seemed to go straight to her head. As if her head wasn’t swimming already.

All her life she had held back, stuck to the rules and then some, always done the right thing. Now she sipped the bubbly, preparing to do something so completely out of character, she could scarcely believe it. He was at the stereo system, turning on some sultry, sweet music that snuck right under her skin. She finished the delicious champagne.

When he came back to her, he held out a hand. “Dance with me.”

Okay, she could do dancing. Dancing was fine. They would dance, talk a little more, and then she was out of here. She set down her glass and let him pull her close.

Their bodies touching full length, for the first time, was a shock, a quickly spreading fire. But she didn’t pull away. He smelled like the sea. The alcohol truly must have gone to her head, she thought. They were in the middle of Wyoming.

His gaze caressed every inch of her face as they swayed to the music. “I feel as if I have known you for a hundred years.”

She tried to laugh that off, point out that it wasn’t a terribly original pickup line as far as those went, but couldn’t. Because she felt the same.

She felt as if she’d just come home, into safe port, after having been lost on some vast, inhospitable ocean. She shook her head slightly. That had to be just the champagne talking.

“So you save people all day?” His voice was rich and seductive. “Who saves you?”

That prickled something inside her. “I don’t need to be saved.”

He gave a low laugh. “Everybody needs to be saved a little.”

Was he talking about himself? A tragic past maybe? She forgot to ask when he kissed her again.

This could not be real. In real life there were no men like him, no kisses like this. If there were, she would have heard about it. All her previous encounters with men seemed so pitiful in comparison that they didn’t even bear thinking about. There were no other men. Only him.

He tasted her lips over and over again, conquered her mouth without effort, sent her senses spiraling out of control, needing what his kiss promised. Needing it so much it scared her.

She pulled away. Drew a quick breath and searched his gaze for a clue as to what he was thinking. Saw nothing but heat.

“Too fast?”

She nodded.
And not fast enough.

“How about if we just stick to dancing?”

She agreed to that. Already she missed his arms around her. But not for long. They enfolded her quickly enough, as if he’d missed her, too.

“Much better,” he whispered in her ear, his warm breath ruffling a few stray strands of hair at her nape, sending tingles down her spine.

“I’m not sure what’s happening,” she whispered back.

“Mercury in retrograde?”

“What?” She was clueless about astrology.

“Pay no mind to me. I have no idea what it means. I have a sister who sometimes talks about that sort of thing.”

The song ended; another began. Neither gave a thought to stopping. They danced through that song, then the next and the next. She had no idea what he was thinking. She was thinking that she could get used to this.

“Would it be all right if I kissed you again?” he asked after a while.

That seemed like the exact perfect thing. She tilted her head up to him.

This time the flood of sensations didn’t scare her as much as the first time. She hung on to him and rode the wave.

His lips kissed a trail to her ear, nibbled her sensitive earlobe. Shivers of desire ran down the length of her body as his hot mouth moved down her neck, inch by inch, with care.

“I could kiss your neck all day,” he murmured.

She seriously doubted she could take it all day. Her knees were already buckling. And that was before his long, knowing fingers slowly danced up her rib cage. As flimsy as her costume was, not much separated skin from skin.

Then his hand found the gap between the layers of veils and his heated palm branded her. She opened her eyes, startled, only to realize that he had danced them into the bedroom, where the most amazingly large bed she’d ever seen waited.

“What do you wish?” His voice was a rasp, an urgent whisper that tickled along her nerve endings.

She reached up to his white caftan and parted it bravely.

Hunger burned in his gaze. “Anytime you wish to stop, we will.”

She believed him. She felt 100 percent safe with him, which was sheer insanity, given the brevity of their acquaintance. But she saw dozens of patients every day and considered herself a fair judge of character. She trusted her instincts.

She pushed the caftan off his shoulders, watched the lustrous material pool at their feet, then placed her palms against his chest, on the light linen shirt he was wearing. She could feel his heartbeat. Slow and steady.

“Come,” he said, and she melted into his embrace.

He removed her veils one by one, expertly, as if unwrapping a gift. “Exquisite.”

She had nothing left but a sequined bra with matching panties. She pressed against him so he couldn’t take a good look at her.

He gently pushed her away with a low chuckle. “That’s not going to work. I want to see—” his gaze darkened “—everything.”

And as he stood before her, tall and heart-achingly handsome, she couldn’t say she didn’t want to see the same. She snuck her hands under his shirt, her palms gliding up the smooth pane of his abdomen, over ripples of muscles. Her fingertips tingled.

“More?” he asked when she hesitated.

She covered his masculine chest willingly.

Whatever he did for a living, he didn’t do a lot of sitting around behind a desk at the office. He had the body of a man who was physically active. He had a body that could make most women weep, honestly.

And he was here, with her.

“Why me?” Her insecurities pushed the words to her lips.

“Was there anyone else in the room?” he asked lightly.

She felt the same. Once she’d spotted him, it had been as if the rest of the room had disappeared.

His hands caressed her shoulders and moved down her back, to the clasp of her bra. “May I?”

She grew uncertain again. “Wait.” She already felt way underdressed compared to him.

He must have guessed her thoughts, because he reached for the bottom of his shirt and pulled it over his head, tossed it to the floor. “Better?”

Oh, was it ever. Her gaze got lost on the panes of his chest for a long minute.

A pleased smile played on his lips. He waited. He didn’t push her, not with a look, not with a gesture.

She turned her back to him, pulling her hair aside, offering him the clasp. “Please.”

He ran his fingers around the outline of the material first, teasing her, tormenting her, setting her skin on fire. Then, at long last, she felt the pressure of the elastic give.

She held the cups in place in front as she turned. “I’m sorry. I’m too…” She wasn’t sure what she should say. Inexperienced? Self-conscious? “You’re perfect.”

Again, she moved to him, pressed against him to avoid his gaze. He kissed her, kissed a path down her neck, reaching between them and lightly pulling away her bra.

Her breath caught.

Skin to skin.

Heat throbbed low inside her belly.

“I’m going take you to the bed. Tell me if that’s too fast.”

She didn’t say anything.

Slowly he reached under her thighs and lifted her up, wrapped her unsteady legs around his slim waist. His hard length pressed against her aching core, leaving no doubt how much he wanted her. Yet his patience didn’t waver for a second.

He settled her in the middle of the bed, then lay next to her, coming up on his elbow, taking in every inch of her. “A work of art. I never understood, until now, why artists say that about the human body.”

The compliment was so outrageous, she couldn’t respond to it. Her body was far from perfect. After her shift was done, more often than not, she was too tired to exercise. And all too often too tired to make and eat something healthy instead of a microwave dinner.

He placed a hand on her abdomen, and her skin immediately heated; need tugged at her. He drew slow circles, up and up, until he reached her breast. He outlined one first, then the other. Then he drew concentric circles with his index finger until he reached her nipple.

She arched into his hand until his palm covered her breast completely. Almost more than she could bear. And then he dipped his head with a wicked smile and tasted the other nipple.

A low moan tore deep from her throat.

Insanity. What she was doing here was pure madness. And she wanted more of it. She wasn’t sure why now, why with this man, but she did know that he was different from all the others she’d met.

His lips tugged and suckled; his fingers rubbed and teased. She buried her hands in his thick black hair, luxuriating in the silky strands.

Then his hands moved and his fingers were on her panties, tugging them down. Only then did she realize that his pants and underwear were already gone. When did that happen?

His body was pure perfection, tan skin stretching over lean muscles.

He kissed her one more time, deeply, until her head was spinning and red-hot need throbbed in every cell. Was she really going to do this? Did she have the strength and the will to stop? No, she didn’t. This was what she wanted.

He pulled away, only to kneel between her legs. One hand under each thigh, he bent her knees. Out of nowhere, a foil wrapper materialized in his hand.

“Are you sure?” His dark eyes were hooded; his voice was a thick whisper that held all kinds of promises, his amazing body was hard and more than ready.

Glorious
was the first word that came to mind.