Hide-and-Sheikh

by Gail Dayton

  "And there are antelopes," Ellen said.

  "Yes." Rudi smiled. She understood.

  "So where are we going?" She scanned the terrain with that radar-beam gaze of hers.

  "This way."

  Ellen caught him off guard when she hauled her horse to a stop and glared at him. "That's it," she snapped. "I have had all I can take of your cryptic half-truths. You tell me right now where we are going, or I'm knocking your sorry butt off that horse and hauling you back to town. And I don't mean Buckingham."

  Rudi blinked at her, surprised by her outburst. But then, why should he be? He had not been truthful with her from the beginning, still was not, and he well knew Ellen did not possess large amounts of patience.

  "My apologies," he said. "I have no definite destination. I merely thought that we might ride into the hills where there are trees. I did not intend to be cryptic."

  Ellen continued to glower at him.

  "And my butt is not sorry," he added. "I have been told that it is—" He broke off, as if trying to remember. "Ah, yes. That it is mighty fine."

  She snorted. With laughter, he hoped.

  "What's over there?"

  Rudi accepted the change of topic and looked where she pointed, at a low, steep rock face rising sharply from a dry wash. "A small canyon begins just past that face. I should have cattle grazing in the meadow there."

  His horse stirred, and Rudi brought it easily under control. "Sometimes I climb to the top of the cliff and watch them."

  "You do not." Her retort was instantaneous.

  "I do not climb the face, or I do not watch the cows?"

  "Either. Both."

  She no longer scowled, but Rudi liked her skepticism even less. She maligned his manhood. "I have climbed that rock face a dozen times."

  "Yeah, right." Ellen actually scoffed.

  Rudi wondered how he could wish so strongly to strangle her and to kiss her at the same moment. Fury swallowed up his words, bound his hands. She was fortunate.

  "Anyway," she said, "if you did climb it a dozen times, it's probably no big deal. I bet a baby could climb that. A baby still in diapers."

  "You could not climb it." He found his voice.

  "If you can climb it, I can climb it," she sneered.

  "You cannot. Not without asking for help."

  "I don't need anybody's help to climb those rocks."

  "Prove it." Rudi reined his prancing mount in a tight circle.

  "You prove it first."

  "We will climb together. And you will ask for my help." He brought his horse right next to hers, his knee bumping hers as he faced her.

  "I won't." She poked at his chest. "Not from you."

  "Do you care to make a wager on that?"

  "Fifty bucks says I make it to the top without help," Ellen said.

  "A poor wager. Hardly worth making." His heart began to pound in his chest as possibilities opened up before him.

  "Well, excuse me, your high-and-mightiness. I don't carry bags full of gold fizz-cats—"

  "Fiats." He corrected her.

  "Whatever. I'm not a moneybags like you."

  "Which is why a wager for money does not interest me." Rudi pretended to a nonchalance he did not feel.

  "What does?"

  "If," he said, crowding his mount deliberately into hers, making it back up a step, "if you ask for my help at any time while you are climbing the rock face, I win. If I win, you will agree to do whatever I ask for all of this night to come." He intended to require answers to all his questions.

  "If you win, I'm your love slave?" Ellen's voice was colored with bitterness.

  Her words made him burn, now she had spoken them, though his intentions truly did not go in this direction. "I suppose you could think of it that way. I did not."

  "Sure you didn't."

  "Believe what you will." He shrugged, as if it was of no matter to him.

  "So I win if I get to the top on my own, right? What do I win? You as my love slave?"

  "It sounds—" his attention was caught by the quick slide of her tongue across her lower lip "—sounds fair to me."

  "It would. Either way, you get what you want."

  Rudi backed his horse, as if preparing to leave. "If you are afraid…"

  "Don't try to pull that on me. I know what you're trying to do. And you know I'm not afraid to climb that cliff." She stabbed a finger first at him, then toward the cliff.

  "Yes. I know you are not afraid of rocks." Rudi crowded close again, urging his mount forward until he was eye-to-eye with Ellen. Understanding burst in his mind with all the slow-dawning power of a sunrise. "You are afraid of me. You are afraid of what I make you feel."

  "Like hell I am." Ellen kicked her horse several times before it agreed to move. "You've got your bet."

  He rode after her the few dozen yards to the base of the gray granite rock face. Though it was scarcely thirty feet high and studded generously with footholds and handholds, the cliff appeared twice as high and three times as dangerous, now that his mind visualized Ellen's slender form clinging to its side.

  "Ellen, wait," he said, reining his horse in beside her as she dismounted.

  "Second thoughts, Rudi?" She sent him a challenging glare. "Too late. Of course, if you're afraid…"

  He was, but not for himself. "You could get hurt."

  "I can get hurt walking through Central Park. I can get hurt going down the stairs in my building." She found handholds and set her foot on the first rock. "But I don't. I can take care of myself."

  Rudi swung off his horse and hurried to her. "You cannot climb in those boots."

  Ellen paused atop her rock and looked at her feet. "I hate to get my new boots all scuffed up. But too bad. You can polish them tonight when you're my slave." She shot him a wicked grin.

  "No. That is not what I mean. The soles are too slick for climbing. They will slip." He held up his hands to assist her down.

  "Those dozen times you climbed these rocks, did you wear cowboy boots?" She stood straight, balanced on the sizable boulder, waiting for his answer.

  "Yes, but—"

  "If you can do it, I can do it."

  She started up again, checking each foothold before trusting her weight to it. At least she took proper caution, Rudi thought, following close behind her and just to her left. Even better, this rock face was not actually vertical. Not quite.

  Hand by hand, foot by foot, they climbed the cliff. A dozen times, a score, a hundred, Rudi reached out to help Ellen, to lift her past a difficult spot, to catch her when her foot slipped yet again. And each time, Ellen glared his assistance away. His heart pounded like a runaway camel, his breath rasped in his ears, as if he climbed a sheer hundred-foot cliff, rather than this tiny one.

  When they neared the top, Rudi scrambled ahead, ready to pull her up if necessary. Once more, Ellen refused his hand, crawling under her own power over onto the sparse grass growing in the gritty soil. Panting slightly, more from the altitude than the effort, he was sure, she grinned triumphantly at him as she got to her feet.

  "I won," she said.

  Rudi's control broke. He caught her by the shoulders and shook her. "Don't ever do that to me again!"

  Then he wrapped his arms around her and held on tight, until his own shaking stopped, however long that might take. She was in his arms, whole and safe. He had not taunted her into killing herself.

  "Hey, take it easy." Ellen pushed against him, but he could not let her go. Not yet.

  "What's going on here?" Her voice came gentler this time. "Rudi?"

  Still he could not release her, could not find words, though his heart finally began to slow.

  "Rudi, were you worried about me?" This time Ellen managed to pry herself free, enough to look up into his face. "You didn't think I could do it, did you?"

  He said nothing, but she must have seen the truth in his expression, for she tore herself free, stumbling back a few paces, knocking away his hands as he grabbed to keep her f
rom the edge.

  "How many times do I have to tell you?" Her eyes flashed blue lightning at him. "I can take care of myself."

  "I know. That is—" He gave her a rueful look. "My head knows. But my heart is not so wise. It sees only the danger."

  "Oh, please." Ellen rolled her eyes. "Let's leave any talk about hearts out of this. You don't mean it, and I don't need it."

  Now Rudi's temper flared, but he kept a tight grip. "You do not know. Neither what I mean, nor what you need."

  "And you do?" Her sarcasm inflamed him further.

  "Yes." He bit the word out.

  She answered with a snort of mocking laughter. Most unbecoming. "Just remember, princey." She put her forefinger against his chest and pushed. "I won. Tonight I own you. Capiche? I own you. Not the other way around."

  "Yes." The words gritted between his teeth as he ground them. "I understand." He did not know capiche, but he could discern its meaning from the use she made of it.

  He would be her slave tonight. Honor demanded it. And while he was her slave, he would do everything in his considerable power to break down the walls of fear behind which she hid.

  Rudi glanced up at the sun beginning to descend toward the distant Sangre de Cristo Mountains. "We should go back now. Annabelle will have dinner waiting by the time we arrive."

  "I won." She taunted him in a childish singsong. "Care to make another wager? Want to race down?"

  "No!" The shout burst from his sudden, stomach-clenching fear.

  "Why not? Afraid you'll lose? Again?"

  Her ridiculous glee would be amusing at another time, but not at the top of a thirty-foot cliff. Rudi caught her arm, hauling her close, letting her see his anger.

  "Because the quickest way to the bottom is to fall," he hissed. "I will go down first, and you will follow. And if I wish to help you, I will. And you will accept my help. Do you…capiche?"

  She blinked, seemingly taken aback by his vehemence. "Okay. Fine. You're the boss." A wicked little smile crept across her lips. "Until tonight, that is."

  Rudi gave a single abrupt nod. "Until tonight."

  Six

  As they climbed back down the cliff face, Ellen was forced to admit that she was grateful for Rudi's help. Down turned out to be a lot harder than up. She lost count of the number of times he guided her foot to a better hold, or steadied her when the slick-soled boots threatened to slip. When they finally reached bottom, she had to hold on to Rudi's hands, the two hands that had steadied her those last steps from shaky rock to solid ground, for a few extra moments. Just long enough to make sure her knees would hold.

  Halfway back to Rudi's house, reality hit her. She'd won the bet. She had won Rudi for her very own personal love slave for the night What in the hell was she going to do with a love slave?

  Okay, he'd tried to dress it up when he made the bet, just saying that the loser had to do whatever the winner demanded. But when she'd accused him of the love-slave thing, he hadn't denied it. He just hadn't expected to lose.

  But he had. He'd lost, she'd won, and now she owned him for the night.

  She could handle it. She was the boss. All she had to do was not ask for…that.

  Ellen glanced at him, riding easily beside her. He looked good in a cowboy hat and jeans. Very natural. He'd looked just as good in his Arab clothes. Face it, Ellen. He'd look good in anything.

  Or nothing.

  She smashed that thought flat with a mental sledgehammer. Only, it curled up again, coming back to life like the villain in that silly Roger Rabbit movie. The man was temptation on the hoof, the devil with big brown eyes.

  His shirt strained at the seams where it stretched across his shoulders, the snaps threatening to pop all on their own. She wanted to find out what was underneath. No, she didn't. His hips moved with the rhythm of the horse, his legs stretched wide around its barrel, and she wondered how those legs would feel… She tried again to deny the thought, and gave it up as useless. She did want, and wonder, and all the rest of it.

  Sex with Rudi might be different, might be all those bells and whistles and fireworks going off that she'd heard about but never believed. With Davis, back when she still believed in true love and fairytale endings, sex had been okay, but nothing to write home about. She'd tried it a couple of times since then, thinking surely it had to get better, surely there had to be something to all those romance-novel descriptions. But it hadn't and there wasn't.

  So she just wouldn't go there. She could think of plenty of things Rudi could do for her that didn't have anything to do with sex.

  No, she couldn't.

  When she looked at him, she wanted to touch him, and when she touched him, she wanted to— She just plain wanted.

  She couldn't do this. She didn't need a love slave, didn't want a love slave. But she couldn't back out of it. That had been part of the dare. Rudi had accused her of being afraid of the prize. Of course, he was really saying that she was afraid to be the prize. Which was true, though she'd never tell him that.

  Unfortunately, winning the prize seemed to be almost more frightening. If she tried to call it off, Rudi would accuse her of cowardice again, and she couldn't bear that. Maybe she was scared of certain things sometimes, but she couldn't let anyone know it.

  Rudi had to be the one to back out. He was a sheikh. A prince. He was used to people bowing and scraping before him, not doing the scraping himself. Surely his pride wouldn't let him go through with this slave thing. Ellen sincerely hoped so.

  If he didn't back out on his own, maybe she could help him along. Maybe she could be so demanding, so imperious, that he would get fed up and quit. She would have to try. Otherwise, disaster loomed.

  When they arrived back at the house, Rudi took care of the horses, which Bill had trailered over earlier in the day. They belonged to Rudi, but usually they stayed in the barn near Bill's house, where he could care for them more easily. With a last pat of his mare's sleek gray rump, Rudi headed for the house and Ellen.

  After a brief search, he found her on the deck outside the first-floor bedroom. Something jolted deep inside him at the sight of the sunlight on her golden hair, here in this place that he loved. The pines rising from the hillside beyond provided a fitting backdrop for her beauty.

  "There you are." The expression on her face as she turned and spoke put Rudi on his guard. "What took you so long? I've been waiting for ages."

  He might have been encouraged by her words if her face had not told him she plotted something. "The horses required care," he said. "I am here now."

  "Did I say you could talk?" She drew herself up into a regal posture. "I don't care about your excuses. I don't care about the horses. I care about me. You're my slave, and you have to do what I say."

  His eyes narrowed as he watched her watching him. If he were not certain she planned something devious, her latest words would make him angry. But somehow, he knew that anger was what she intended to provoke. Therefore he must remain calm until he perceived her purpose.

  Rudi bowed in apology, remaining silent, as she demanded of him.

  "Go get me something to drink," she ordered, waving her hand.

  He waited.

  "Well?" She raised her brows expectantly.

  "What do you wish to drink?"

  "I don't care. Something cold."

  Rudi imitated Omar's bow again and turned to go.

  "No, wait." Ellen called him back. "First, come take off my boots."

  He inclined his head in acquiescence and approached her, holding his temper in firm hands. Bending over from the waist, he lifted her foot.

  "No." She pushed him away. "You're not doing it right. I want you down. On your knees."

  Rudi's eyes flashed to her, and he saw the look of triumph on her face before she hid it behind her mask. Immediately his anger cooled. She wanted him angry. She purposely tried to demean him in order to spark his temper. Why?

  Slowly, holding her gaze, Rudi went down on one knee. She swallowed hard. H
e picked up her foot and tugged the boot off easily. He sent a caress of his thumbs across the arch of her foot, and Ellen gasped. With a hidden smile he set the foot down and picked up her other one. She was not immune to him.

  As he removed this boot, still watching her, Rudi saw a flicker of apprehension cross her face, and he understood. She intended to push him until he backed out of the wager. Her pride would not allow her to back down, and she believed that his pride would not allow him to do her bidding. She was wrong.

  He intended to make her feel every one of the things she was afraid of feeling, and he would do it by catering to each one of her whims. This would be a night Ellen Sheffield would never forget.

  Somebody had sucked all the oxygen out of the atmosphere. Or maybe she'd just forgotten to breathe. Ellen tried inhaling, just as an experiment, but the air seemed to get caught in her throat somewhere before it actually made it to her lungs.

  It was Rudi's fault, of course. His fault for having such big, deep, dark brown eyes, and looking at her with them. Looking at her like that. Not as if she was a trophy, or an expensive toy, or any of the other things men had told her in the past, but as if she was infinitely more valuable than anything in the world. As if she was cherished.

  She jerked her foot out of his grip and shoved him with it. "Go on. Get me that drink."

  Instead of glaring at her, or stomping away, or doing any of the things she expected, Rudi made that gracious, graceful bow of his head and rose smoothly to his feet. The muscles of his thighs bunched, making her bite her lip hard. The pain didn't distract her from the sight, from wanting to see just exactly how those muscles felt beneath her hands.

  "Of course," he said. And he went to do as she ordered.

  What was wrong with the man? Didn't he have any pride? If she had been the one to lose the bet, she'd be slamming doors and throwing things already.

  Ellen sighed. Maybe it just meant he was a better sport than she was. That didn't take much. She hated to lose. But somehow, some way, she had to make him back out of this bet. She couldn't take much more of those bedroom eyes or movie-star muscles.