To Touch a Sheikh (Pride of Zohayd 3)

“What good would that be, if I don’t know the counter-concoction?”

He gave her a mock-conceding nod, began to eat.

She’d attended banquets he’d organized in the past, forgetting to eat as she lost herself in the pleasure of watching his feline focus and fastidiousness. She suspected he used the absorption in his meal to discourage interaction.

She couldn’t let it discourage her now.

“Thank you.”

She felt her whisper hit him like a jolt of electricity.

He hid his start in a rising movement, took his bowl to the sink, throwing over his shoulder, “Nothing to thank me for.”

“Just the inconsequential matter of saving my life.”

“It was incidental to saving my own.”

“Someone else could have thought taking me along would lessen their chance of survival.”

“I’m the Mad Prince, not the Craven one.”

“We both know you’d go to any lengths to save someone’s life, at the possible price of your own. You did that during that bomb scare. You’re the Hero Prince, too, even if you would rather be steamrolled than called that.”

His eyes flared. He’d never given her a chance to bring up the bomb scare before.

She knew why. Not because her side of the story would destroy the reputation he worked so hard to cultivate. The incident was widely known, yet people dismissed the evidence of his heroism and chose to believe what he wanted them to believe—that he wouldn’t lift a finger to save someone drowning at his feet.

It was because he wouldn’t acknowledge what had happened between them during and after the incident. He wanted to forget the turning point they’d almost reached. Good luck with that. She’d never forget.

He finally smirked. “Watch where you wave those euphemisms. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Oh, just accept my thanks, Amjad. I promise, you won’t hurt yourself if you do.”

“If it’ll make you drop those fanciful interpretations of my actions and character, by all means.” He bowed in mock chivalry. “You honor me with your gratitude and good opinion, Princess Aal Wicked. I’ll do whatever it takes to prove I’m not worthy.”

As she chuckled, he turned, started brewing coffee, tossed back at her, “Now that the interesting part of this escapade is over, we begin the dull part of being safe and bored out of our minds.”

“Trust me when I say this,” she said. “With both of us here, boredom is a literal impossibility.”

“Boor-dom isn’t, so that leaves me hope.”

She laughed again. He wasn’t giving an inch. Which would make it more worthwhile when he gave all seventy-seven of his inches.

A minute later, his back still to her, he said, “I called your father.”

Maram started. She’d forgotten about her father, let alone about reassuring him. “Oh, thanks. He must have been worried sick.”

“No.” He walked back, put the mug in front of her without looking at her. “He hadn’t had news of the sandstorm yet.”

He took his mug to the laptop. Before he sat on the floor, booted it up and ignored her presence, he added, “I told him we’re safe here until the storm subsides.”

And now that they were, Maram was in no hurry for that to happen.

She’d wished for a couple of hours with him over two days. Now she would be secluded from the world with him, all day long, for as long as the sandstorm raged, long may it do so.

She would use every minute to chip away at his condescending resistance and maddening distance. And she would do it.

Four

How would he do it?

That was what Amjad wondered again as he watched Maram puttering in the kitchen, humming perky melodies in her smoky-silk voice.

How would he survive having her permeate his every breath, overwhelm his senses and chip away at his good sense, for as long as it took to see his plan through?

His original plan had been to keep her father here until he was willing to negotiate. He’d estimated one night of isolation with him in the desert, aided by the unrelenting sandstorm outside, would bring him around. Yusuf Aal Waaked wasn’t a strong man, physically or mentally. Amjad had no doubt he would cave.

That knowledge convinced him Yusuf wasn’t the mastermind of the conspiracy. Amjad sensed a more complex, ruthless mind behind it. Probably the informer who’d lured Talia Burke into Zohayd.

Said informer had exposed Yusuf to Talia, Amjad’s brother Harres’s seductress and future bride, probably because he doubted Yusuf would not go through with the dethroning according to the informer’s preferred timetable.

This informer had counted on Talia running to the press with Yusuf’s identity and the news of the jewels’ theft to get back at the Aal Shalaans, whom she’d then believed had been behind her own brother’s arrest and imprisonment. Once exposed, Yusuf would have been forced to fall in with the informer’s wishes, which seemed to be not to wait for Exhibition Day.

But they’d thwarted the informer. Talia had revealed Yusuf’s identity only to Harres, and they hadn’t even confronted him.

Yusuf, secure his plans were safe and bound on pursuing his original timetable, had accepted Amjad’s annual invitation. Once he’d arrived, Amjad would have taken it from there.

That had been his best-laid plan.

Now he had Maram instead, even though he preferred braving the sandstorm naked and on foot rather than risk prolonged exposure to her.

His new plan was to call her father in a few days, when he was sure to be desperate for news, and dictate his terms. The moment Harres and Shaheen confirmed the return of the jewels, he would ride to the nearest town with Maram, have a helicopter fly her back to her father. She’d never know she’d been his hostage. He’d advise Yusuf for future self-preservation to never let her suspect anything.

In essence, he’d keep his word. Nothing would harm her.

And now that she believed her father had been reassured of her safety, that this was an adventure, she was enjoying the situation to no end. He wasn’t.

This haboob would last days. And if her father hadn’t relented by then, he would have to keep her here, unaware of what was really going on, until he did.

It had only been six damn hours.

Two if he didn’t count the four hours she’d slept.

But he did count them. Knowing she was sleeping in his bed, wearing his shirt, with nothing but that wisp of a panty drying on her hot flesh had made him unable to acknowledge his own exhaustion, to get the rest that would put everything back in perspective. He’d kept worrying she might suffer some delayed effect of the brutal ride. But he couldn’t check on her and see her asleep either. What he’d seen of her legs, of her body where the shirt had clung to the panties’ dampness, had been enough. He couldn’t risk seeing more.