Bella and the Merciless Sheikh

‘At least we kept Amira,’ Bella murmured happily and then frowned slightly as her words were greeted by an uncomfortable silence. ‘What? We won, didn’t we?’

‘You won. The rest of it doesn’t matter,’ Yousif said quickly, but Bella glanced between him and Zafiq.

‘What’s going on? What’s wrong?’

‘You are a woman,’ Yousif muttered. ‘The officials are saying that Batal must be disqualified because he was ridden by a woman.’

‘What?’ Her distress visible, Bella shot upright again, wincing with pain. ‘No, they can’t do that.’ She turned to Zafiq, her expression desperate. ‘You’re the Sheikh! Tell them they can’t do that! Batal won. He was a complete champion. It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been ridden by a monkey, he still would have won. Oh, this is all my fault for fainting at the end. I was supposed to ride him to the stable and swap places with Hassan.’ With a groan she covered her face with her hands and Rachid pulled her into his arms.

Seeing her clinging to his brother for comfort was the final straw.

‘Out,’ Zafiq commanded in a low, dangerous tone. ‘All of you out. Bella doesn’t need this level of stress.’

But Bella was already struggling out of bed, her legs buckling as her feet touched the floor. ‘You can’t let them take Amira, Zafiq! Promise me!’

He caught her before she fell and lifted her back onto the bed. Letting her go was harder and he kept his arms around her for a moment, his body tightening as he felt the softness of her skin and the familiarity of her slender frame.

An in tensely disciplined man, it exasperated Zafiq that all he wanted to do was flatten her to the bed and soothe her injuries personally. Apart from that one brief kiss in his stables, he hadn’t touched her since the desert.

‘Zafiq, you have to do something!’ Her fingers dug into his arm, her eyes a deep, fierce blue as she pleaded with him. ‘Batal won that race!’

Realising that they still had an audience, Zafiq threw a fulminating glance towards the doorway and intercepted his brother’s startled gaze. Whether the shock in his eyes was caused by Bella’s lack of formality or the fact that Zafiq was still holding her, he had no idea, but that glance was sufficient to ensure their privacy and Rachid coloured and ushered everyone out of the room, leaving the two of them alone.

With a huge effort of will, Zafiq forced himself to release Bella. Sitting down on the edge of the bed he put a safe distance between them but the strain on his self-control combined with the anxiety of seeing her fall, added to his stress levels.

‘Once again you were reckless, wilful—’ His restraint snapping, he leant forward and kissed her, the softness of her mouth creating an explosion of sensation through his body. After weeks of self-denial he was on the verge of losing control and it was only her sudden gasp that made him draw back. ‘I am hurting you,’ he groaned guiltily. ‘You are bruised everywhere.’

‘No, it isn’t that—I don’t care about that.’ Her eyes were swimming with tears. ‘I wasn’t trying to be wilful or reckless. For once in my life I was trying to do the right thing. There was no one else who could ride him and we all wanted to save Amira—and I messed it up.’

‘You didn’t mess it up.’ Telling himself that it was perfectly reasonable to comfort her or she might make herself worse, Zafiq shifted position and lay down next to her, pulling her carefully into his arms. ‘You were ridiculously brave. Do you have any idea how I felt when I saw that it was you? And then when you slid off the horse a second time—’