The Sheik Who Loved Me (2 page)

Chapter 1

W
here was she?
Her eyes flared open. Dim light sliced through to the back of her brain where it exploded in a burst of sharp pain. She scrunched her eyes shut tight again.

She could hear an unearthly sound, like wounded banshees or a screaming wind. She couldn’t make sense of it. She thought she could hear surf crashing far away. Like the drums of gods or rolling thunder. Or maybe it was just the dull thudding of her heart, the sound too loud inside her skull.

She tried to move her head, but it hurt.
Everything
hurt. Her whole body pounded with rhythmic pain as if her veins and vessels were too small and too fragile for the angry blood that was being thrust through them.

She tentatively tried to open her eyes again. Through her lashes she could make out shapes, shadows. Quivering. Firelight? Candles? An exotic scent stirred in warm currents of air. She couldn’t seem to find focus. It was all a blur, so very foreign.

A wedge of panic rammed into her heart.

Then she sensed a presence. Someone standing over her. Her heart stalled. With a bite of fresh urgency, she forced her eyes open wider, trying to pull the dark shadow that loomed over her into some kind of recognizable form.

It was a man, staring down at her. A severely beautiful man with dark skin, sharp, angled features, raven-black hair and piercing blue eyes. Eyes that bored right into her soul.

Danger!

Her chest constricted. Her heart hammered up into her throat. She knew that face from somewhere. It set every alarm bell clanging. She tried to swallow, to calm herself, to breathe. She concentrated on the man’s face, mentally cataloguing his features, desperately trying to find a match in her brain, to understand why he was supposed to represent a threat.

He was big, tall, with a wide chest and powerful forearms covered with dark hair. His wrists were broad, and his fingers, she noted in a distant part of her brain, were long and exquisitely shaped. His skin was an exotic mocha brown, a sharp contrast to the startling indigo of the eyes that bored into her, through her.

His brow was prominent over his eyes giving him a predatory look. In fact, everything about him was predacious, save for his mouth. His lips were full and elegantly sculpted, rescuing his features from the severity of harsh angles and planes, giving him a smouldering male sensuality, an air of refined yet dangerous aristocracy.

Her eyes moved slowly down the length of his body. He wore a loose-fitting and very white
galabiya
that offset the dusky tone of his skin. It was cinched at the waist by a brocade belt and into that belt was thrust an ornate
jambiya.
Her brain cramped. The world spun around her. A
galabiya?
It was the robe worn by most Saharan desert tribes. And the
jambiya?
Only Arabs carried the traditional curved dagger like that. But those intense blue eyes were
not
those of an Arab.
Who was he?
Where on earth was she? Confusion and fear tightened twin fists around her heart.

He was profoundly attractive, powerful, but he was also an enemy. Not on her team. She had to be careful, guarded. Her life depended on it. She knew this somehow. But how did she know all this? Why? A wild terror scrambled through her brain. What
did
she know?

Her eyes flicked nervously around the room. It was lit by lamplight, a kerosene lamp. That’s what the smell was. That’s what made shadows flicker on the whitewashed walls. A wooden fan turned slowly up on an exceptionally high ceiling. The room was furnished with artistic, antique-looking pieces of dark burnished wood. She noted the ornate arch over the heavy wooden door at the end of the room. The whole effect was high-end North African…or perhaps Moorish. Her heart stuttered into a crazy panicked beat. She didn’t recognize a thing. She had absolutely no idea where she was. She tried to sit up.

He restrained her instantly, placing a hand firmly against her shoulder. “It’s okay, relax, take it one step at a time,” he said.

She stilled at the deep gravel tone of his voice. He had a British accent, yet it was underlaid with the low and sensual gutturalness of Arabic. His hand was warm on the bare skin of her shoulder, and his palm rough. She realized then that she was covered by only a white cotton sheet. Under it she was utterly naked. Alarm mounted, swamping any attempt at rational thought.

“Don’t touch me.” She warned, her voice coming out in a raw croak.

He withdrew his hand instantly. “As you wish. But take it easy. You’ve been unconscious.”

“Where…where am I?”

“You’re in my home on Shendi Island.”

“Where’s that?”

“The Red Sea, off the coast of Sudan. Shendi is a private island. I own it. My name is David Rashid.”

“The Red Sea?” Her words came out in a panicked and painful rasp. Why was she anywhere near the Red Sea? The wind was making a terrible howling sound outside. She could hear it banging, tearing against shutters. It muddled her mind. She couldn’t think.

Concern shifted into his eyes as he stared down at her. And that distressed her. If he was worried, she too had reason to be.

She held his gaze, fighting her fear, determined to show some strength. “Why am I here?” she demanded.

“You took a bad knock on the head. We found you unconscious on the beach. You’re very lucky you didn’t drown.”

Drown? Knock on the head? She reached up, tentatively felt her brow where it throbbed dully. Her fingers detected a neat line of stitches along her temple just below her hairline. Alarmed, she fingered the length of what must have been a nasty gash.

“You have more cuts,” he offered. “Down your left side, and along your arm.”

Her eyes shot down to her forearm. More rows of tiny black stitches. Swelling. Blue-black bruising beginning to show. “What happened to me?”

“You washed up on the beach in the storm. We need to know if you were on a boat, if there were others with you. We have a search party out but have found nothing so far.”

Confusion shrouded her brain. She tried to marshal her thoughts but couldn’t. Her head hurt terribly. “I…I don’t know…”

“That’s okay.” He lifted his hand to touch her shoulder again, thought better of it. “Give it time. It’s probably the concussion. Let’s start with your name.”

She opened her mouth to say it, but she couldn’t. It wouldn’t come. Terror ran hot through her veins. Frantically she searched her brain, but she couldn’t locate it. She couldn’t remember her own name. She couldn’t seem to recall anything. How she got onto the island. Where she’d been. Or why. The storm. Others on a boat.

Absolutely nothing.

His eyes sharpened again, cutting into her with laser intent as he waited for her to speak. Her mouth went dry. She clutched the sheet tight around her chest as if it would somehow shield her from the sheer horror at her predicament. The wind rose to an awful howl. Shutters crashed somewhere.

He was still watching, still waiting. But something else was shifting into his features. Pity. He felt sorry for her. And that made her feel infinitely worse. It also made her angry. She hated pity.

“If you tell me your name,” he said, “once we get our communication system up and running again, we can let someone know that you’re all right.”

She remained silent. She had absolutely no idea who might be looking for her.

“I’m sure there are people worried about you.”

She drew in a shaky breath, said nothing.

A crease deepened across the smooth skin of his brow. He studied her face, his blue eyes analyzing, stripping her down to her mental core, making her feel more naked than she already was under the crisp sheets.

“You don’t know your name, do you?”

“Of course I do.”

He arched a brow, waited.

“I…my name is…it’s…” It still wouldn’t come. She couldn’t find it. She felt it was inside her head somewhere, lurking in a file folder in her brain. She just couldn’t find the tab that identified the folder so that so she could grasp it, pull it out.

He touched her arm again.

She jerked back reflexively.

But this time his hand remained on her arm. “It’s all right,” he said, his voice suddenly incredibly gentle. His hand was warm. The roughness of his palm against her skin spoke of a man who spent a great deal of time outdoors. For some reason this grounded her. This time she found some small comfort in his touch. This time she didn’t pull away.

“Just relax, I’ll get Dr. Watson.”

“Doctor?”

“He tended to you most of the night.” He smiled into her eyes. “I took the graveyard shift so he could get some rest. I’ll send for him.”

Panic swamped reason. “No.” She jerked away, fresh energy and determination surging through her system. She struggled into a sitting position. She clutched the sheet around her torso and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I don’t need a doctor. I’m fine.”

She
would
be fine. As soon as she got moving. As soon as she got blood flowing back into her brain. Then it would all come back. Her name, everything. She was sure of it. “Where are my clothes?” she demanded.

He angled his head, tilted his dark brow, a hint of amusement lighting his intelligent eyes. “You haven’t got any.”

“What?”

A smile ghosted his lips. “You washed up on the shore as naked as the day you were born…apart from some torn green fabric wrapped around your legs.”

She stared at him, mortified. “Who brought me up from the beach?”

“I did.”

“How?”

“On my horse.”

Oh, Lord. She closed her eyes, tried to find a center in the gray swirling blankness of her brain. She had to get moving. It was the only way. She was sure of it. Once she moved she’d be fine. She forced herself off the bed and onto her feet, clutching the sheet tightly around her body. Her legs felt like lead, her feet were as heavy and about as cooperative as dead stumps.

She took a step, and the world spun wildly. She wobbled, grabbed the edge of the bed, steadied herself.

He grasped her elbow. “You shouldn’t move so quickly.”

She jerked away from him. “I said don’t touch me.” She took a determined step toward the thick-looking bedroom door. Then another. But her body wouldn’t behave. Her steps turned into a wild, flailing stumble, and the whole room spun. She swayed as a dizzying kaleidoscope of black and bright closed around her. She felt her legs collapse under her. Everything moved in slow motion as she sank to the floor, the sheet pooling embarrassingly at her feet as she went down.

He moved quickly, catching her head an instant before it thudded onto the cool tiles. She was vaguely aware of his callused hands against her bare torso, the brush of his forearm over her naked breast as he lifted her from the ground.

Then everything went black.

David yanked on a thick, tasseled bell cord. His housekeeper appeared almost immediately.

“Fayha’, get Dr. Watson, please. Tell him his patient surfaced briefly. I think she’s sleeping now.”

Fayha’ dipped her head in silent acquiescence, closed the door gently behind her. David turned to the mysterious woman lying in his bed, all the while listening for the approach of Watson’s heavy footsteps in the stone corridor.

She looked like a wax sculpture in the golden glow of the kerosene lamp, a surreal angel. She was in her late twenties, he guessed, possessing an unconventional and exotic beauty, with high defined cheekbones, elegant arched brows and almond-shaped eyes fringed with thick amber lashes. She was tall, her muscles long and lean. But above all, it was those eyes that had undone him. They were closed now. And that made him feel a little safer.

But when they’d flared open he’d been stunned by the hugeness of them, the deep emerald green. And when she’d found focus and stared up into his own eyes, he’d been rocked by the depth he’d seen in them.

A man could drown in eyes like that. Eyes the color of the ocean.

Then a thought slammed him up the side of the head so hard and sudden he sucked in his breath. Aisha had drowned in an ocean that color. While he was diving, taking personal pleasure in the beauty and depths of a coral reef. He’d left her and Kamilah alone, up in the boat.

David swallowed against the hard knot of pain, of love and loss and irrational guilt. That was almost two years ago. The memories should be a little easier now. But they weren’t. A part of him didn’t even want them to be. A part of him relished the sharpness of the pain they brought him, as if hanging on to the hurt would preserve his love for his dead wife, as if it might absolve his guilt in some way.

He didn’t deserve easy memories as long as Kamilah still suffered. And he didn’t deserve to dive in waters like that, ever again. Which is why he hadn’t. Not once since Aisha’s death.

The woman in his bed moaned softly, jerking David’s attention back to the present. He felt himself bracing for the incredible green of her huge eyes.

But she didn’t wake. Her breathing settled back into a soft and regular rhythm, her chest rising and falling under the Egyptian cotton sheet he’d placed over her. Her hair was dry now, full of wave and curl. It fanned out about her face over the white pillows, the fiery color of a Saharan sunrise.

Her neck was sleek, elegant in the way it curved down to her collarbone. His eyes followed the lines of her body down to where the sheet rose gently over the swell of her pointed breasts. He thought of the soft and heavy weight of those breasts, naked against the palm of his hand, against his bare chest. He thought of the dusky coral nipples. David’s mouth went dry. Unbidden heat spilled low into the pit of his stomach.

He wiped the back of his hand hard across his mouth in shock. This was sick, to be aroused by an injured and barely conscious woman. A woman who couldn’t be more vulnerable if she tried. But by God she was desirable, in an unattainable and otherworldly kind of way.

Kamilah was right. If he’d had to conjure up the image of a mermaid in his dreams, this would be it.