by Dana Marton
She walked out of the bedroom, her gaze settling on the black leather couch in his office. “I’ll be sleeping here.”
“No,” he replied on reflex.
She plopped down and gave him a dazzling smile. He didn’t suppose any man could resist her when she looked like that.
She bounced on the seat cushions, and her smile widened. “You know, this is not half-bad. Pretty luxurious actually, compared to a couple of places I had to bunk at the last few years.” She ran her slim fingers over the fine-grade leather.
And in his head he could see the two of them on that couch. Naked. He swallowed. “Fine. Suit yourself.”
Her smile widened. “Once you get used to me, you’ll barely even notice I’m here.”
He doubted that could ever happen.
He stood there looking at her, hesitated, and considered for a moment asking her to share his bedroom. Pure insanity. He tossed the thought aside. She was injured. He was a civilized man, not an animal.
“Good night.” He turned on his heels and retreated, for the first time in his life.
He could hear her “good night” through the closed door as he walked to the middle of the room and stopped, wanting very much to go back to her.
Nothing but madness. He stripped out of his clothes and went into the bathroom, took a long shower, as cold as he could stand it. When he was done, he slipped on silk pajama bottoms and lay on the bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling. No chance of an assassin surprising him in his sleep while she was in the house. Not because she was guarding him, but because he was unlikely to sleep as long as she was near.
He didn’t even try not to think about her.
The first hour passed without sleep touching him, then the second. Then the sound of screaming and clatter in his office ripped open the silence of the night. He was on his feet and through the door in a split second.
Saeed flipped on the light and stopped in his tracks at the sight before him.
Dara was sitting on the chest of one of the maids, Leila, his pistol in her hands, aimed at the whimpering woman’s head.
“Let her go,” he said, slowly, distinctly.
She stood up, keeping the gun aimed. “She sneaked in here in the dark.”
“What happened?” he asked the near hysterical woman in Arabic as he stepped to Dara and held his hand out for the pistol.
She wasn’t giving it up. Fine, he’d deal with her later. He was going to have to remember to lock up anything she might use for a weapon. He had a fine staff; he wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was attached to them. Some of them had been in service since his father’s time. He had considered them more as family members than hired help.
Leila sat up and apologized, on the brink of crying. Her cat had run out when she’d got up to go to the bathroom; she was just looking for the animal.
He translated for Dara, relieved when she finally lowered the gun.
The maid apologized again and when he assured her he was not angry about the disturbance, she retreated from the room.
“I will not have anyone in my house mistreated,” he said, holding Dara’s gaze, knowing that the clamoring in his chest wasn’t from concern for his staff, although he didn’t like anyone in his employ being tackled.
He was having a near heart attack because for a moment he had thought an assassin had gotten in and harmed the woman who had so captivated him, whose safekeeping was his responsibility.
“Did you pull out any of your stitches?” He reached for her arm.
“I don’t think so.”
“I would like to see.”
She shrugged and unbuttoned her shirt, and his throat went dry when he realized she was going to undress. The bandage was too big to roll the sleeve up over it.
She slipped her injured arm out, her shirt hanging off her right shoulder. He tried to look away from her perfect breasts, covered only by a thin cotton camisole that was plain and utilitarian. It drove him mad.
He lifted the bandages then stuck them back on when he was satisfied that she was all right, but he did not let go of her. He pulled her into the bedroom, closed the door behind them.
“I want you to stay here.” For more than one reason, he thought, but for now he would settle for her safety.
She must have read him because he saw the fight rise in her eyes. Then the bodyguard in her won and she nodded. She was so serious, ready to perform her duty at all times and under all circumstances. He admired her dedication.
Under her beauty lay a steel core he found irresistible.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her, he had merely wanted to protect her, even knowing she was more than capable of looking after herself. But no matter how good his security, nothing was impossible for a man with determination. Or for a woman—he was beginning to believe. If an assassin got in…And at that point of the thought process, reason flew out the window.
Once his gaze fastened on her lips, his head dipped on its own.
She met him halfway. The small gesture made his blood sing.
Chapter Five
Bad idea, Dara thought, even as their lips met. Tingling energy hummed through her system, ran into her limbs.
The kiss was…inevitable.
Something about him overrode her security precautions with ridiculous ease. She sighed and let go. She was a soldier; she recognized the point when fighting became futile.
Her hands crept up his naked torso, and she could feel the play of muscles under her fingertips as he folded his arms around her. Her heartbeat had not yet slowed from the rush of waking up to an intruder, and when Saeed had barged out in nothing but black silk, the settings in her brain had switched from Danger to Lust in an instant. She would have handled danger better, was more prepared for it.
His lips were soft on hers but insistent. The man didn’t have a tentative bone in his drool-inducing body. He slipped off the rest of her shirt and pulled her closer, nothing between her nipples and his chest but the thin fabric of her camisole.
He nipped her lower lip, and she opened for him. Then his fingers glided over her ribcage, and his palms covered her breasts. She moaned into his mouth.
He was careful with her, but not hesitant—took everything he wanted. She gave it and wanted to give more, surprised by the strength of her body’s response.
In her line of work she was used to being surrounded by guys, them coming on to her in jest or in earnest. She brushed them off on principle. Military missions always required full concentration, and the short breaks she had in between assignments she preferred to spend alone. She was thirty-one and she could count the number of relationships she’d had on one hand with fingers left over.
And if she’d ever had good reason to say no to a man, it was now. But she didn’t protest when he picked her up and carried her to the bed, or when he laid her on the coverlet and stretched out next to her.
He looked at her for a long moment, his fingers reaching for the hem of her camisole and sneaking under it. The heat of his touch on her bare skin made her shiver in pleasure. He moved higher and rubbed his thumb over a nipple. She arched into his touch.
He watched her eyes, and she knew he could see the naked shameless need in them. She didn’t care. She ran her hands over soft silk and felt his hardness beneath. And she wanted it. He flexed against her palm. She wanted to feel him flexing inside her. Heat pooled between her legs at the thought.
Something poked against her back, nudged her conscience. She reached to push it away, and her fingers closed around the barrel of the gun. She’d still had the pistol with her when he’d carried her to the bed.
He unbuttoned her pants and slipped his long fingers inside, and she wanted to melt into the sensation, but the cold metal under her own fingers brought back reason.
“No,” she said, half-surprised she could still say it, hating to stop him, knowing she must.
He drew back, took a slow breath, closed his eyes. Some of their heat was gone by the time he opened them again.
&n
bsp; “You’re right,” he said. “Not yet. You need to recover.” He gathered her against him, his arms a protective circle around her. “Go to sleep,” he whispered into her hair.
“YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE COME here,” the minister of trade said, his round face pale with sadness and resignation.
“I must do something.” Saeed leaned forward in his chair. “I would give my life for our country without hesitation, for our people. But I will not have it taken from me out of paranoia and political madness. I have called some others on the council this morning.”
“I know.” The man nodded, looking years older than when Saeed had last seen him a few months ago, his hair nearly all white, deep brackets framing his mouth. “You shouldn’t have come back to the city.”
Anger rose in Saeed swiftly. “I will not cower. Had I stayed, I would have drawn more assassins to my family. I must face my enemies.”
“I have heard the people are gathering. A small army…”
“Not my doing.” He shot out of the chair. “I swear I do not seek to topple the throne.”
“You look very much like your great-grandfather,” the minister said after a moment of silence. “I suppose you hear that a lot.”
“I believe in peace. It is what we need.” He watched the older man. Bringing his great-grandfather into the conversation was no happenstance.
Sheik Zayed was a legendary leader. He had pushed foreigners out of the country and unified the tribes. He had made Beharrain what it was today. Saeed remembered well the man from his childhood, stalwart and full of fire.
After his death, his son Salim had ruled for twenty-nine years before a stroke had forced him to give up the responsibility of ruling to Saeed’s father, Ahmad. But King Ahmad had died before long in an accident, and Saeed’s uncle, Abdullah, a man as paranoid as he was weak, had come to the throne. Then came the horrible years of civil war, ended by the iron fist of Abdullah’s eldest son, Majib.
Saeed watched the man in front of him, wondering if he could still be trusted. If he, like everyone else since his father’s death, expected Saeed to take back the throne eventually.
“We live in delicate times,” the man said. “Perhaps a trip abroad for a while.”
“I will not run.”
“You cannot win a trial if your enemy is the judge.”
The man was right, of course. Saeed nodded. And yet he had to do something. He could not run for the rest of his life. “If we could get a group of us together and sit Majid down, break the hold Jumaa has on him. I’m certain he could be made to see what bad counsel he’s been getting from the prime minister.”
“What goes on at the royal palace is out of our influence. We must stay out of it. If I lose my office, I can be of no use to the people.”
Saeed looked at him and read the fear in his eyes. “If we stand together—”
The man shook his head. “It is not widely known, but the king ordered the execution of all political prisoners a week from today. The unrest in the country worries him.”
Saeed stared at the minister. Hundreds of men were held in Majid’s prisons, some of them Saeed’s relatives. At the beginning of his rule, Majid had removed everyone from government about whom he had the slightest suspicion of not supporting him, everyone who raised his voice on any issue against Majid, everyone who questioned whether the succession of the throne should go back to King Ahmad’s line.
The political prisoners were a sore subject between Saeed and Majid, one often discussed. Saeed thought they had made progress. He had hoped he could talk his cousin into letting the prisoners go.
He stood to leave, accepting that he would not find the support he sought from the minister of trade, understanding that matters might be even worse than he had thought.
“Ma’al salama,” the minister said his goodbye, then added on a quieter voice as Saeed was closing the door behind him, “Allah be merciful.”
Saeed walked down the hall, down the stairs, out of the newly renovated offices. But instead of going to his car, he marched straight across the road to King Majid’s ostentatious palace. The many-towered building looked like a cross between a grand mosque and the Taj Mahal. But looks could be deceptive. While it looked the picture of dignified civility on top, torture chambers hid below.
There had been a brief time after the civil war when Majid and he were still friends. Saeed had come and gone from the palace almost daily then, obliging his cousin’s request for help with convincing the Bedu sheiks to support the new king. Then he saw too much of the tools his cousin used to preserve the hard-won peace and lost the taste for politics.
He walked up to the gilded gate and noted the extra security. He did not have to identify himself to the guard. “I wish to see my cousin.”
The man bowed and allowed him through. He walked across the paved courtyard to the east wing that held the offices, leaving his small handgun with the second set of guards who stood at the doors of the main building.
Climbing two flights of curving marble stairs took him to the red velvet reception room where he was greeted according to his title.
“I apologize, Sheik, I lost your appointment.” A nervous little man he had not seen before shuffled his books.
“I do not have an appointment. Is my cousin in the palace today?”
“Please allow me to inquire.” He hurried off and returned not five minutes later. “The king is overjoyed at your visit and will see you at once.” He snapped his fingers at one of the many clerks who sat at tables behind him, and one came to his feet.
Saeed followed the man through a labyrinth of corridors to one of King Majid’s smaller sitting rooms, one he reserved for private enjoyment.
Majid sat behind an enormous marble-topped desk, cigar in one hand, a tumbler of cognac in the other.
“Assalamu alaikum.” Saeed bowed.
“Walaikum assalam, Cousin. I hope you and your family are well and everyone prospers.”
“Yes, thank you. May I offer my congratulations on the fortuitous birth of your new prince.”
The boy was Majid’s twelfth son. The king inclined his head with a small smile, very different from the reaction he’d given at the birth of the first—a full week of fireworks and money distributed on the streets. Clearly the excitement of fatherhood had worn off over the years. “Would you like a drink?”
Saeed watched as the man sipped, breaking the Islamic law of which he was supposed to be the country’s supreme defender.
“No, thank you.” He sat, thinking his next words over carefully. He had to convince Majid that he was not a threat to the throne.
But the king spoke before Saeed had a chance to make his case.
“I had disturbing news of you lately, Cousin.”
“I assure you it is false. My loyalty is to my king and country.”
“And yet armies gather and your name is on the rebels’ lips.”
“I have nothing to do with it, I swear to you.” He spoke his words with force and clarity. “You must trust the blood of your family. The prime minister perhaps wishes us not to trust each other for his own purposes. Perhaps Jumaa likes the taste of power too much.”
“I am king of this country.” Majid’s voice rose. “I am not controlled by the prime minister. I assure you, it is quite the other way around. It is bad enough your father allowed the glory of our monarchy to be reduced to a constitutional monarchy. He was a weak man. But I am strong enough to rule as a king was meant to.”
Saeed swallowed his anger. His father had been ten times the king Majid was. His father had ruled in the best interest of the people. He looked at Majid and finally understood how wrong he had been about his cousin. And it pained him a great deal because he did not want to go against his own family. But like his father, he also had the interest of the people at heart. And for the sake of the people, he would do anything that had to be done.
The king swirled his drink for a few moments before he talked. “You’ve disappeared from the city suddenly.
You could not be found.”
“To defend my life and for no other reason.” Saeed watched the man closely as he spoke. “I heard of the upcoming executions. You must reconsider.”
“You come to my palace armed, and plead the case of my enemies,” Majid said, the friendliness gone from his voice, his tone hard and cold. “I understand the guard took a weapon from you.”
“I gave it over myself. There had been attempts on my life. I must be armed as a precaution.”
“Attempts on your life or so you say.”
And he heard it in Majid’s voice. His fate was decided. It had been decided before he had ever come here. Nasir had been right about their cousin.
“It pains me,” the king said as he pushed a button on his phone, “to find that my own family betrays me.”
A side door opened and guards poured in, eight of them.
Saeed stood with dignity. “Indeed, blood betraying blood is the worst. May Allah blacken the face of any such man.”
He did not resist when they led him away, refused to fight like some petty criminal jostling with the street police. He was sheik, leader of his people, great-grandson of Sheik Zayed. He would find a way out, and whatever was needed to save his nation, he would accomplish.
WHERE THE HELL was he? Dara went through the papers on Saeed’s desk for the third time, hoping for a clue. Nothing there. His appointment book was blank for the day.
He’d already been in his office and working when she’d woken. He had a servant take her to a sumptuous breakfast, indicating he wanted to talk to her later today. After breakfast, she took a bath in her guest room. By the time she made her way back to his office, he was gone. It took her a half hour run-through of the house to realize he was no longer on the premises.
The staff would tell her nothing, claiming they didn’t know where he’d gone. And now, midafternoon, she was really getting worried. She left his desk and went back to her room, threw an abaya over her army fatigues, veil and head scarf in place to cover her face, and marched out of the house, straight to the guard at the gate. They would either tell her where Saeed went or she would go out on her own and search the streets.
