The Black Sheep Sheik

by Dana Marton

  “I’ll tell the others. They just went down to the conference room. Stefan called a meeting with the security we still trust and the police. I was about to head down there myself.”

  “Hurry. Only one armed guard here now, but reinforcements are coming.” Frustration was eating him from the inside out.

  Were he alone, he would kick the door open and rip the bastard’s head off. But he needed to stay calm so Isabelle wouldn’t be injured in any fight. A stray bullet could easily find her. So he gritted his teeth and resolved to bide his time, no matter how much he hated hiding in the shed.

  “Thank God you grabbed that phone,” Isabelle said as he hung up. “Who did you reach?”

  “Prince Darek.” He shoved the phone into his pocket, then moved to the wall and began systematically searching every square inch of wall and floor. Just because he couldn’t fight, it didn’t mean he was cursed with complete inactivity.

  “One of the princes for the summit?”

  “Another friend. We all grew up together, actually.” Then Darek’s father went mad with greed. His country, Saruk, was the largest in the region. A few years back King Kalil had decided it would be a good idea to annex the smaller island nations to gain more power for himself. Darek wasn’t like him, but all that tension had soured their friendship. Until recently. It seemed they could still count on him when they were in trouble.

  “I thought the news said only five princes came.”

  “He only arrived recently.” And probably in secret. “He heard about all the difficulties and flew over to help. True friendship is proven when one is in trouble,” he said, quoting an old Jamalan proverb, as he squatted to look under the bed, feeling guilty that he had, on occasion, doubted Darek’s sincerity. But the man did stand up to the test. He was here, ready to do whatever was needed.

  “You don’t know how I envy you.” The words flew from Isabelle’s lips on a sigh.

  He looked up. “For my friends?” Was she lonely? At that masquerade at the resort where they’d met, she’d been surrounded by a group of friends. For the first time, it occurred to him that she might have missed those friends while she’d been taking care of him at her father’s cabin. He would make sure they had an open invitation to visit his palace whenever they pleased. He wanted Isabelle happy.

  “I envy your ability to squat. Or move freely in general,” she said in a wry tone. “These days, I’m happy if I can bend over to fasten my sandals in the morning. What are you doing down there?”

  “Looking for a way out, and for any tool that could help.” Plan B. They were running out of time. He needed to be ready for whatever might happen next, especially if something happened before Darek and the others arrived.

  THEY WERE FINE. They had made contact. Help was on the way.

  Isabelle held out the screwdriver. Amir must not have seen it in the dark. “How is this for a tool?”

  He grinned as he came over. “Amazing.” He put his hands over hers but didn’t take the tool. Instead, he pulled her to him and kissed her.

  His lips were firm and warm on hers, knowing. He was an excellent kisser. She certainly hadn’t forgotten that. And he seemed even better now than she remembered. Her pulse raced. Her mind turned to mush in less than two seconds. She placed her hands on his chest, and he must have correctly read that as a sign of surrender, because he deepened the kiss.

  Her whole body tingled. She had dreamed of him often in the past nine months, but this was so much better than any of her dreams. He was real, his chest solid under her fingertips, his heart beating fast against her palm.

  She wanted him. Nine-months pregnant and she wanted him so much she moaned his name. She probably should have been ashamed of herself, but she couldn’t manage an emotion as complicated as that at the moment. Primal need ruled her. Yes, she wanted him. This was what she wanted.

  But how long could this tumult of emotions and need last? her last sober brain cell asked. She didn’t want to fall into some fantasy of the two of them together forever, unreasonably happy and all that. Things like that weren’t real. Trouble was, she could see it. She really could.

  “I don’t want to fall in love with you,” she whispered against his lips without meaning to, the words bubbling up from her subconscious. And scaring her. She pulled away.

  He watched her from under hooded eyelids, desire etched clearly on his face. She would be a goner if he kept looking at her like that. She turned from him in an attempt to hang on to the last remnants of her sanity.

  “It would be too easy to fall for the whole ‘protected by the powerful sheik’ thing,” she said quickly. “Who doesn’t want that? But then, eventually… And life isn’t meant to be a search for safe, anyway. You have to face the challenges and grow.” Exactly why she’d gone to medical school and become a doctor instead of marrying one, like her mother.

  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. Som
e 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.

  Chapter Nine

  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 br
eath 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.