At The Sheikh's Command

He was tugging down her skirt, smoothing it over her hips, along her thighs, his movements brusque and—that damn word again!—controlled. He didn’t seem aware of the way that his touch, so cool and calm, distant as a doctor’s, made her want to cry out in shock and loss as it came so close to the spot where the throbbing tension of need even now held her in its grip. The sting of arousal still pricked at her breasts, demanding appeasement. The whole of her body felt like a long moan of protest at the way that the pleasure it had been seeking had been so brutally snatched away, leaving her lost and desolate.

‘Fasten yourself up.’

Malik’s tone was brusque, his curt words a cold command. His eyes were hard as jet without any trace of the burn of warmth that had been in them before. The man who had called himself ‘just Malik’ was gone and the person that Abbie thought of as The Sheikh was back and wholly in control.

He was busy tidying himself as he spoke, quickly and efficiently fastening the buttons her fingers had tugged open, tucking his shirt back into his trousers, smoothing his hand over his tousled hair.

‘I said, fasten yourself up!’

It was an order and a sound of reproof all in one and the cold disapproval in the black gaze that swept over her cut straight to her heart.

She had been lost, adrift on a sea of passion so intense that it had taken over her mind and driven all rational thought from it. The sensation had been so devastating that she was having trouble focusing on anything else. But Malik was icily, unemotionally back in control in the space of a heartbeat, and it was obvious that nothing at all had touched him in the way that it had affected her.

‘Do you want Cavanaugh to find you here like this?’

‘N-no…’

She could only manage a whisper, her voice refusing to obey her. So were her fingers as she fumbled with her disordered clothing, the sense of panic at the thought of her father finding her like this making matters worse.

‘Abbie!’

Her name hissed through Malik’s teeth in a sound of total exasperation and he reached for her again. Perhaps his intention was only to help; perhaps he meant to do what she couldn’t manage and pull things back together again, but that wasn’t the thought that crossed Abbie’s mind.

‘No!’

Remembering only the burning pleasure that those hands had brought her just seconds before and not knowing whether she most longed for a repetition of it or feared it utterly, she reacted on total instinct. An instinct that was even closer to the panic she had barely been able to control.

‘No—I—I have to go!’

There was one way she could avoid any confrontation with her father, ensure that he didn’t know what had been happening in his absence. There was a side door on the far wall of the library, one that led out of the room in the opposite direction to that in which her father was approaching.

True, it also led to the conservatory from which the only way back into the house, without retracing her steps, was to go out into the garden and come in again by the kitchen door. But at least she would have a few moments in which to draw breath. Everyone was inside so she would have time in which to pull herself together, both mentally and physically.

How could she have let this happen? How could she have lost all control, all sense of self-preservation so completely as to forget just who this man was and why he was here?

She couldn’t even look him in the face, couldn’t meet his eyes. And yet just seconds ago…

‘Your boss,’ Malik had said. He had thought that she was employed by her father—by the Cavanaugh family. She could only suppose that the appalling apron and her scruffy clothes had given him that impression.

He thought that she was only a servant and so fair game for him to waste time with, to flirt with heartlessly. To use for his pleasure and then discard when he felt like it.

‘I have to go,’ she muttered again, hoping it sounded more convincing this time. With her head down, her eyes burning with bitter humiliation, she turned for the door, moving as quickly as she could, just wanting to get away—get out of there.

She made it to the door, had turned the handle—opened it—when, to her shock and horror, he came after her. One strong bronze-skinned hand closed over her arm, imprisoning her wrist, holding her.

‘Wait!’ he said, his voice low and thick. ‘Wait!’

‘Wait for what?’

For further humiliation? For him to tell her that she wasn’t worth his time? That she had simply been an amusement with which to fill the minutes while he had been waiting for her father to return? Wasn’t that what men like him—sheikhs like him—had harems for? So that they could pick any woman they chose. Any woman who happened to catch his eye. Any woman he fancied mauling.

‘So that you can maul me again?’

‘Maul?’

He actually looked shocked. His proud dark head went back, brilliant eyes narrowing sharply.

‘Maul!’ he repeated on a deeper note. ‘You dare to call that mauling! Let me remind you, sukkar, that you wanted it every bit as much as I did—you still do.’

His cruel gaze dropped to where her breasts were still exposed. To where the tight, hungry points of her nipples betrayed the need she might try to deny with words—an unconvincing denial when her body spoke so eloquently against her.

‘And I still do.’

Malik’s voice was rough and thick. So he wasn’t quite as much in control as he pretended, Abbie realised. There was still a lingering rawness in his eyes and the hand that imprisoned hers was not quite as steady as she had first thought.

The realisation made her hesitate. She couldn’t move, either in or out of the open door. She could only stare up into the glittering darkness of his eyes and wait…

But then the footsteps—her father’s footsteps paused outside the door. She saw the handle turn…

And suddenly Malik’s hand came up to touch her face. He cupped her cheek in one hard palm, looked deep into her eyes as if determined to hypnotise her into total obedience.

‘Come to me tonight,’ he whispered softly, huskily. ‘Come to me at my hotel and we can finish what we started.’

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. But she knew from his faint smile how he saw the change in her face, the one she couldn’t disguise. The one that meant acquiescence, whether it was wise or not.

He saw her face change and knew he didn’t have to say anything more.

‘The Europa,’ he said, the total confidence in his tone that of a man who knew he had won and there was nothing more to say. ‘The Europa at eight. I’ll be waiting.’

His mouth took hers for a hot, brief moment and then was gone.

Abbie didn’t know if she moved herself or if Malik pushed her, but either way it was only just in time. Somehow she was on the other side of the door, and with it firmly closed behind her. And in the library she heard the other door open and her father’s voice apologising for being so long.

‘Not at all…’

This time, Malik’s accented voice came clearly through the heavy wood that separated them. Cool and clear and totally unperturbed as if nothing had happened and he had simply been standing there, waiting for his host’s return.

‘I had plenty to think about. Plenty to occupy me while I waited. I never noticed the time at all.’

It was already turning dusk outside. Under cover of the gathering darkness, Abbie swiftly tidied herself up, adjusted her appearance. The wretched apron was ruined, torn beyond repair, so she pulled it off, crumpling it into a bundle and stuffing it out of sight behind a couple of plant pots. She would come back and retrieve it later tonight, when no one was likely to see her.

Later tonight. Tonight. The word hit home to her as she hurried along the shadowy path, heading for the kitchen door.

Tonight. Come to me tonight…and we can finish what we started.

He had been so sure, so confident that she would not refuse him. He would be waiting for her at eight, just as he had said.

Would she be there?

Even as the question entered her head, Abbie knew that the answer would push it straight out again, giving her no time to think. Not that she needed any.

Of course she would be there. She had no other choice. No alternative.

It was dangerous. It was crazy. It was probably the most stupid thing she would ever do—but how could she ever live with herself if she didn’t do it? How could she leave this stunning man, this devastating meeting, only half known, his lovemaking only half completed? The ache in her body, an ache that felt like a bruise right into her soul, told her that she couldn’t. She just couldn’t leave things like this.

The Europa at eight…

Malik’s confident voice rang inside her head.

He was so sure that she would be there.

Her footsteps slowed, coming to a halt in the darkness, and her fingers crept up to her mouth, pressing against her lips, thinking back, remembering how it had felt to have Malik’s kiss on her mouth. His caresses on her yearning body.

The Europa at eight…

And she would be there. Of course she would be there. How could she ever live with herself if she wasn’t?

CHAPTER FOUR

THE huge gilt clock in the foyer of the Europa hotel was striking the half hour as Abbie made her way to the reception desk.

She was exactly half an hour late—deliberately so. She had fully intended that Malik should have to wait for her. Or at least she had once she had finally decided that she was coming here tonight. Because the confidence of that first decision hadn’t lasted. She had barely got inside the house, closing the kitchen door and leaning back against it, before the doubts had assailed her.

How could she have ever been so stupid? she had asked herself. What was she thinking of, planning to go to him—to take him up on his invitation?

His invitation to seduction.

No, it hadn’t been an invitation. It was an order—a command from a man used to giving commands to everyone every day. Giving them and having people jump to obey them as soon as he spoke. He probably didn’t even have to ask most of the time, just click his fingers and he would be obeyed.

And was she going to jump to do his bidding too?

Not on her life!

No, she told herself as she made her way through to the hall again. His Royal High and Mightiness the Arrogant Sheikh Malik bin Rashid Al’Qaim could snap his fingers all he liked. She wasn’t going to be at his beck and call just because…

Just because he was the most devastatingly attractive, the most shockingly sexy man she had ever met in her life.

Her footsteps slowed, turned, drawn by some invisible force, some powerful magnetism, taking her towards the library in spite of the resistance she tried to impose on them. The door was tightly shut, the sounds of the voices inside the room muffled, their words impossible to make out. But she knew when Malik was speaking She had only heard a few hundred words from that erotic voice but already it seemed to be imprinted on her mind so that she recognised it instantly.

And wanted to hear it again.

And again.

She wanted to hear it tell her to call him ‘Just Malik’. To hear him say that she was beautiful, that he wanted her… She wanted to hear that glorious voice whisper to her in the darkness, giving her words of love, of caring, of hunger.

Tonight. Come to me tonight…and we can finish what we started.

Oh, dear God, she just wanted to listen to that voice all night—every night—for the rest of her life.

But was that enough to base her future on? Surely she was totally unwise—crazy!—to go to him.

But, oh! How she wanted to.

‘Can I help you, madam?’

The receptionist’s question broke into her thoughts and dragged her back to the present. To the moment she had been worrying about from the point she had set out on this wild assignation.

‘Come to me,’ Malik had said, and he’d told her the name of the hotel, but he hadn’t given her any further information than that. She had never visited someone so important, someone royal before. Surely there would be security checks at the very least.

‘My name is Abbie…’ she began hesitantly and was intensely relieved to see the woman’s face break into a smile.

‘Of course. We are expecting you. Would you please come this way?’

A few moments later, whizzing upwards in the express lift that went only to Malik’s suite, Abbie couldn’t believe how easy it had been. She had merely given her name and everyone had jumped into action, informing the penthouse suite that she was here, checking her identity, escorting her to the lift. There she had been handed over to the care of a tall, dark and deeply polite security guard who now stood, strong legs planted firmly on the floor, deep-set eyes alert and watchful, on the opposite side of the lift.

Just at that moment it slowed to a halt and the doors slid open silently. Her companion gave a small bow.

‘After you, madam,’ he said as he stood back to allow her to precede him.

This must be what it was like all the time if you were a sheikh, Abbie reflected as she stepped out on to thick, soft pile carpeting in a rich royal blue. To have people whose only job was to follow your instructions, to do as they were told, to do as you asked. Once again Sheikh Malik had snapped his fingers and everyone had jumped to do his bidding.

If she had been nervous before, then now her stomach felt as if a million desperate butterflies were beating frantic wings against her ribcage, sending waves of unease up into her throat. She struggled for breath as she headed into the small foyer where a smooth, pale wooden door barred her way. Another security guard stood beside it, firmly at attention, arms by his sides, the smooth fitting of his tailored jacket very slightly marred by an ominous-looking bulge at his waistband.

Abbie swallowed hard at just the thought of being this close to a gun, forcing herself to smile nervously into the guard’s dark, set face. But her attempt at a polite greeting was ignored as, with another of those small, stiff bows, he reached to open the door and hold it for her.

‘Th-thank you!’

Her legs seeming to have only the strength of cotton wool, Abbie stumbled into the room, her personal security guard following close behind her. From behind, she heard the man say something in Arabic, obviously announcing her. As she blinked to clear eyes that had blurred with tension, she saw Malik’s tall, elegant figure uncoil smoothly from the soft black leather-covered settee set in the middle of the huge luxurious room.

‘You came!’ he said, the impact of that rich honeyed voice hitting her senses hard all over again. ‘Welcome!’

Had he really questioned that she would appear? Privately, Abbie took the liberty of doubting that he had thought any such thing. Men like Malik never even considered that there was any likelihood that they would not be obeyed, and obeyed without question.

But then she remembered the stunning news that her father had given her over dinner. The news that had totally changed her mind when it had been set against coming here at all.

She had decided that she was going to be sensible. That she couldn’t take the risk of doing as Malik had asked, no matter how much her foolish heart had pleaded with her. And then her father had said that he had something to discuss with her.

‘It’s Andy, isn’t it?’ she’d said apprehensively, seeing the way his face was set into lines of strain, his blue eyes shadowed with concern.

‘The Sheikh has told you something—what has he said? Will they let him go?’

‘There is a chance,’ James Cavanaugh had responded. ‘But it’s going to be difficult.’

‘However difficult it is, you have to do it!’ Abbie had declared. ‘You have to. You can’t leave him there in that jail, locked up for…’

Her words had faltered nervously, dying on her lips as her father shook his head, his expression sombre.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she’d asked. ‘What does he want? What is it you’re not saying?’

‘It isn’t a question of my doing something,’ her father had told her solemnly. ‘The only person who can help your brother is you. You’re the one who has it in your power to help him, but I don’t know if you can possibly agree to what’s been asked…’

‘Come and sit down…’

Malik was moving towards her, his hand outstretched. Without even really knowing that she was doing it, Abbie pushed her own hands into the pockets of the blue-and-white dress she wore, putting them securely out of reach. If he was to touch her, she didn’t know what her reaction would be. Just being in the room with him was bad enough.

She had told herself that she hadn’t been thinking straight. That she had been so desperately on edge all day—all week!—worrying about her brother, fearful of the moment that the all-powerful sheikh would arrive, dreading the thought of the demands he might make to free Andy. She must have exaggerated the stunning impact this man had had on her.

She had to have exaggerated it. No man could have launched such an assault on her senses, driven her so out of her mind that it had left her shaking with reaction long after she had left him.

But Malik had. And she hadn’t overstated a thing! Even now, when he was still several metres away from her, she could feel her senses start to react, like a flower unfurling in the sun, turning towards the heat and the light, drawn irresistibly to what it needed most.

Her heartbeat had already quickened and her pulse was throbbing. The clean masculine scent of his body was in her nostrils, making her quiver in response.

At some point he had changed his clothes and now here, in the privacy of this huge suite, he was surprisingly casually dressed in jeans and a clinging T-shirt, black as his hair and eyes. And seeing him like that seemed to dispel the thought that he was a sheikh, a prince, the ruler of his desert country. Instead he was just a man. A devastatingly attractive man. An incredibly, hotly sexy man.

And a man who had made it plain how much he wanted her.

‘Abbie?’

He had reached her side and his hand touching her shoulder to draw her attention startled her into new awareness. The heat of his hand seemed to burn through the material of her dress, scorching the skin beneath so much that she didn’t know whether she most wanted to lean into it or pull away sharply.

Hot colour flared in her cheeks and she swallowed hard to relieve the uncomfortable pressure in her throat.

‘Thank you…’

There was a sense of release in walking away from him. Release from the heated tension that had tightened every muscle, release from the stinging sensitivity to everything about him. But as soon as she moved she knew that she wanted it back again, longed for him to come close once more.

It wasn’t easy; it wasn’t comfortable. It didn’t feel safe or relaxing. The truth was that it knotted her nerves tight with tension and uncertainty. It made her stomach twist just to think of it—but at the same time it was thrilling and exciting. It was the most wonderful thing that had happened to her. It brought her alive in a fizzing, crackling way. So alive that it was as if she had only been sleepwalking through her life before.

And on top of that it made her feel so completely, gloriously feminine. She had never felt so much of a woman as she had in the few short hours she had known this man and he had made his desire for her so obvious.

And more than his desire, if what her father had told her was right.

‘Can I get you a drink?’

Malik stood beside her as she sank down into the soft comfort of the leather-covered settee, his height and strength so much more imposing from this lower position.

‘Please…’

She had to find some way of speaking in more than monosyllables! Abbie reproved herself. But simply being in this man’s presence seemed to have tied her tongue into knots and scrambled her brain so that she couldn’t think straight.

‘Wine? Or mineral water—or something stronger?’

‘Mineral water, please.’

She would do well to keep a clear head and not muddle her thoughts even further with alcohol.

Or perhaps some alcohol would relax her.

‘No—wine, please—red. Anything, really. I don’t mind. Whatever you’ve got will be fine.’

Well, at least she was talking in sentences of a sort, but now there was the risk of her tongue running away with her. Clamping her lips shut, Abbie tried again for control, only to find that any hope of it eluded her as she saw the small, almost unconscious hand gesture that Malik made, the automatic inclination of his head towards a dresser on which a selection of bottles and glasses stood.

And the immediate move into action that was the result.

She had barely even noticed the man who had been standing at the far side of the room. He had been so still and silent that he had almost blended in with his surroundings, his navy blue shirt and jacket toning with the dark velvet of the ceiling to floor curtains. But now he moved forward, a result of Malik’s brief, almost imperceptible summons.

Silent and smooth, he moved to the tray of drinks, opening bottles and pouring without another word needing to be said, then handing them to his prince with a bow.

This was what it would be like all day every day for Malik, Abbie thought on a wave of shock. This was what he was used to, what was normal to him. He was accustomed to be waited on hand and foot, his slightest whim attended to, almost before he had even realised it.

And this would be her life too if…

No, she couldn’t think of that now! It would destroy the little composure she had managed to gather together.

But of course it was totally impossible that she could not think of it! It was all that had been spinning round and round in her thoughts ever since the moment that her father had told her the conditions that had been offered to enable Andy’s release.

‘The Sheikh of Barakhara needs a wife. He has chosen you to be that wife. If you say yes, then he will drop all charges against Andy and free him as soon as it can possibly be managed.’

Her father had believed that she couldn’t possibly agree to the demands he was making. He had assumed that she would refuse to have anything to do with the idea. That she would declare she would rather die or face prison herself. But then, of course, her father had no idea that she had ever met the Sheikh—met Malik in person.

And he had definitely no suspicion at all of the effect that Malik had had on her.

Something had happened in the time they had been apart, Malik told himself as he took the two glasses—one of wine and one of water—from Ahmed and carried them over to the coffee table before which Abbie was sitting. She had changed—or at least her mood was very different from the sparky, vibrant young woman he had met earlier that day.

There was a stiffness about the way that she held herself, a wariness in those enormous eyes and she looked as skittish as one of his thoroughbred Arabian mares, as if she might turn and run from him at the slightest suggestion of anything that might spook her. As he put the glasses down her eyes flicked up to his face, very quickly, and then away again, twice as fast. And her ‘Thank you,’ was so faint as to be almost inaudible.

Well, he knew how to handle an uncertain woman. He was almost as much of an expert in it as he was in soothing a nervous horse. It needed patience, consideration, but the end result was worth it. He would get what he wanted in the end.

And what he wanted out of Abbie was a long night’s pleasure. She was to be his relaxation after a day from hell. From the way that she had responded to him earlier, he had anticipated that it would be a lot easier than it now seemed likely. But he could wait. He had all night.

But first he needed to work on the atmosphere a little—make things easier, more comfortable for both of them.