“Armed?” He nearly smiled. “Oh, I see. You found my knife.”
So he knew he’d dropped his knife. She brought her arm around, held up the knife, the blade at an angle. Paolo had showed her how to hold a knife, use a knife. He’d taught her the rudiments of weaponry. “Don’t move,” she warned.
He closed the distance between them, stepping around the table to haul her against him. “Or what?”
Hand shaking, she pressed the tip of the blade to his chest. “I’ll kill you,” she choked, fire and ice flooding her limbs. “Make one more move and I swear, I’ll kill you.”
Tair didn’t even blink. He simply looked down at her, his expression long suffering. “Put that away.”
“No.”
“You’ll hurt someone.”
“Yes. You.”
He grabbed her wrist so suddenly she didn’t even see him move. But now he held her hand in his and with a swift wrench on her wrist, forced the knife from her hand. Her fingers opened in pain and with a whimper she watched the knife bounce to the carpet.
He let her go and she immediately went to her knees, grabbed the knife and came back at him.
Tair sighed and ripped open his robe. “If you insist,” he drawled, now unbuttoning his shirt, “let me at least make this easier for you by giving you the correct target.”
The knife in her hand wobbled as she stared at his chest, the bronze skin scarred over dense honed muscle. She looked at the scar tissue that stretched from his sternum toward his left nipple. “Someone’s tried this before,” she said faintly.
“You’re not the first, no.” He waited, looked at her. “Give it a shot. The skin’s tough but you might be able to do it.”
Tally couldn’t look away from the thick scarring, the seams marring his beautiful skin. Fresh tears filled her eyes and with a groan of despair she gave him the knife. “Go,” she said. “Just go. Get out of here.”
Tair had played it cool in the her tent, but once he’d left his temper surged and he yanked off his robe and tugged on the shirt, freeing it from his trousers and then opening it to the chest, letting the night air cool his skin.
Savage, that’s how he felt tonight. A savage on fire. A savage burning from the inside out.
Standing at the edge of camp, facing the endless desert illuminated only by the moon overhead, Tair could see the sandstorm from earlier, and then the sky once they’d returned, the sky seemed to bleed tonight as the sun set, orange weeping into red against bruised violet. He’d seen the sandstorm on the horizon. He’d seen the clouds gather, the dark brown turning black as the storm touched down, wreaking havoc with the wild whipping winds that decimated everything in its path.
He hadn’t thought he’d reach the woman in time.
He hadn’t thought he’d save her.
He blew out a breath, the air a harsh exhale. He’d told his men to turn back. Told them to return to camp and safety and he alone went ahead for her.
He wasn’t afraid to die. He knew he’d die eventually, it was just a matter of time, but he feared for her. She wasn’t of his people, didn’t know the desert as he did. She would have suffered alone and he couldn’t allow that. If she were to perish he should at least be there with her. No woman should die afraid and alone. It was wrong. Went against every belief he had, every conviction he held.
No, the American didn’t understand his world. His world was primitive and it fit him. Here justice—and death—came swiftly. In the desert, justice was meted out by a fierce and unwavering hand. If not nature’s, then his.
After all, this was his country, his people, his land, his desert, his sun. His father had ruled before him and his father before that, and back it went, on and on, generation after generation.
Tair knew what the American woman said, knew in her world what he did was criminal, knew in her world he had no right. But she wasn’t in her world, she was in his, and here what he did was allowed. Permissible. Just.
She’d get used to his world. Sooner or later.
Tally couldn’t sleep that night. Every time she drifted off, some thought, some terror brought her back awake again.
The fact that she found Tair attractive—in any size, shape or form—horrified her. He wasn’t a good man, nor kind, nor gentle, nor sophisticated. He might have the title of sheikh, but underneath it all he was a kidnapper, a bully and a thief. But knowing that, accepting that, she still couldn’t hurt him.